Modern Day Ghost Girl 2: The Rewind
by MemoryWriter
Summary: The trio is about to go their seperate ways after graudation, but a suspicious entity sends Wendy, Shane, and Nett back in time to where they meet teen-Danny, the new halfa. Until they can return home, Wendy in an ironic twist must become Danny's ghost mentor without letting him know she's his daughter, all while she & Shane deal with a possible break up for college. "...And prom."
1. Reverse Order Pt1

**Hey guys! It's October now! Geez, can you believe it's been like a month since, well, I ca't believe it's been a month since I've done anything on fanfiction :p  
**

**But I got this chapter up as a start! I'll have more blah-blah to say towards the bottom but, I hope you guys like this! Thanks for being so patient! Tell me what you guys think so far!**

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It's a Monday morning, and I'm rushing down the stairs again. No matter how many times I set my alarm, I never seem to wake up until the last one. "Please tell me we have food," I say to myself, speeding to the kitchen. I got home late yesterday and skipped dinner. I was hoping to make up for it with a good breakfast but alas-

My hopeful grin fades when I notice a nearly vacant fridge, not counting the numerous vegetables and oddly shaped fruit. "Mom," I sigh out. "Next time I'm doing the grocery shopping."

"Wendy you'll be late!" Sam calls out.

Deciding to forget it I just grabbed a peach and shut the fridge. I grab my bag and board on the couch and make my way out of the house before Mom can notice I'm still around.

Ah, the sun is bright, the clouds are shady, and the breeze is perfect. "This is gonna be a good day," I grin, taking a quick breather before running to the streets and skating down.

My route to Casper High hasn't changed at all these past three and a half years. Sometimes I'll skate around the corner and have a little flashback about my legendary 'ghost sense' going off and giving me grief. I kinda miss those surprises. Today the only surprises around these corners are the occasional bad driver about to knock me over.

I hear my phone ring from my pocket and take it out quickly, careful of my surroundings. Flipping it open I see Crissy's name on the tiny screen. "Hello kinda busy here," I say impatiently, barely dodging a horribly parked car.

"You're late Manson! I can only stall the meeting for so long you know."

"I know I know. Woke up late," I say. Maybe this is why drivers don't use their phones. "Look give me like two minutes I'll be here in a flash."

"Mhm?" Crissy sounds disbelieving.

I roll my eyes. Does she always do that sarcastic 'mhm' thing? "I promise two minutes just stall a bit more okay?"

I knew what she was gonna say next, so I hang up on her before she gets the chance. Stupid meetings. I didn't even sign up for these stupid meetings.

Ah, you must be wondering why Crissy and I are on such good terms. Ah, well, maybe decent terms according to that conversation. We talk a lot more humanely now than as we did as Freshman.

Here, let me recap on what's happened so far. It's been almost four years now since Nett, Shane and I entered Casper High. Years since the ghost-powers thing. Years since Danny and the secret and the final battle that no one even knows happened. It's all in the past now, and it doesn't come up very much. I mean it used to. It's kind of a big drop after you go from paranormal ghost hunters to normal teenagers. But, time goes on, as does our wonderful high school life into the brink of Senior year.

Mom's still single She can't bring herself to marry or be into anyone else in general. Her heart still belongs to Danny, or Dad, or whatever. And quite frankly I'm glad it's that way. Personally I don't think I could stand any other man with my mom.

And Jazz! Oh my gosh. She's _pregnant_. First child! Haha, I've never felt so giddy in my life. I mean, I'm gonna have a cousin! Another actual kid-family member! And Jazz is even more excited. We've been coming up with names to go with the last names Fenton and Aliah. Her husband's a nervous wreck, but Jazz calls it cute. She's due sometime this month.

Oh yeah. As for Shane and me? We're still dating. Heh, dating. Even after all this time I still feel butterflies when I call myself his girlfriend, or when people refer to him as my boyfriend. All that lovey-dovey jazz. Nothing's changed. I mean, except for kissing but, well, I don't need to get into that. (Though, I have no shame in admitting how I love it so.)

"Where is she?" Crissy muses, looking at her watch as the other girls chatter amongst themselves in the empty classroom. However soon enough the door opens, and I'm there with my stuff, hiding my out-of-breath stance.

"Hey," I greet with a tired grin. "Sorry I'm late."

"Geez about time, Wendy," Crissy greets, walking up to me with that signature smile guys always seem to swoon over. With that, she turns around and claps her hands. "Alright everyone! Prom Committee meeting can finally begin!"

x-x-x-x-x

Meanwhile with the Prom Committee meeting going on, on the other side of the school building, also here early, Shane stands packing up books from his locker. The building's still rather empty around 7:30 in the morning, but Shane can hear a small commotion in another classroom down the hall. Jazz's room.

"Now way," Jazz says with a face, sitting at her desk. She can barely fit with her almost-due pregnant baby stomach.

"I'm totally serious, Ms. A," Nett goes on, sitting on another student desk in front of Jazz. "Then Hanson took down the Capser High Banner and showed her the message '_Will you go to Prom with me_?' behind it. All in spray paint."

"Oh my gosh that is so sweet," Jazz says, covering her mouth.

Just then, the door opens to reveal Shane. He sees his favorite teacher and friend sitting, right in the middle of a conversation. "Gossiping are we?"

"A little," Jazz squeaks, still not over the story Nett's just told.

"I'm telling jazz about Hanson's prom proposal on Friday," Nett grins.

"Ah." Hanson was another fellow senior in Capser High. It's way into Spring and Senior Prom was just around the corner. It was never that much of a priority, but somehow early in September, some guy went all out to ask this girl to prom. It turns out it set the bar so high that now every other girl was expecting some extravagant way of being asked to prom, dating or otherwise. Thus, each guy's worst nightmare.

"Here I have a picture of it on my phone wanna see?" Nett asks Jazz, taking out yet another not-yet-out model of the next touch screen phone his dad's managed to get a hold off.

Nett leans over the teacher's desk so Jazz can see, and she gasps at the picture, while Shane smiles and shakes his head.

Hanson's the latest talk of Capser High, having gone the ultimate line to ask a girl out that he wasn't even dating! Story has it that he snuck into the Casper High Gym one night with a bunch of spray cans to make up this colorful work of graffiti art saying 'Will You Go To Prom With Me?' on the wall behind a huge school banner. Then he showed it to the girl during P.E after tearing down the banner and, well, let's just assume she said yes because it'd be a bummer if she said no.

"As a teacher I can't condone school vandalism but that was really romantic," Jazz sighs out, lost in thoughts.

"I can't believe a guy would risk suspension from school _and_ prom to ask a girl out this way," Nett says, shaking his head. "How am I supposed to beat that?"

"You don't," Shane says, putting some books down on the desk. "Face it Foley, you just freeze up around girls."

"Do not!" Nett denies, though Shane's face remains the same. Nett falters. "Okay well, maybe I get weak-kneed when I talk to certain girls okay? I already have a reputation as the techno-geek head and the push over."

"You are not a push-over, Nett," Jazz encourages, folding her hands in front of her. "You're a gentleman! You're generous. You're funny. You're a nice guy."

"Exactly. I'm 'The Nice Guy'," Nett repeats with quotes. "Girls in this school never fall for the 'Nice Guy' type. They like, the strong silent and cool but secretly heroic type like this guy," Nett states, pointing an outstretched arm at Shane. "But of course you don't really care because you aren't single."

"Oh that's right! You'll be going to prom with Wendy aren't you," Jazz grins. Ever since her pregnancy began the kids gave noticed Jazz to be a much happier and chipper person about things.

"I dunno," Shane says, looking a little unsure. "She, said earlier that she probably might not go."

"What?" Nett and Jazz ask at the same time.

Shane expected that, but he wasn't planning on being cornered like that either. "Financial problems, she said. It's too expensive for her."

"Well that sucks," Nett frowns. "Heck I'll pay for her spot."

"Already tried," Shane says. "She won't take the money if you offer her."

"That's very unfortunate," Jazz says, her mood suddenly a little sadder and sympathetic.

"And kind of ironic considering she's on prom committee," Nett notes, tapping his chin. "I mean it's already May."

"I know," Shane nods. "She told me to go ask another girl so I'm not alone on prom night." Shane checks his watch after hearing it beep. "Anyway I'm gonna go. Wendy's meeting should be over now. I'll see you guys later okay?"

"Later," Nett says wearily until the door closes. With that the teen looks to his teacher for guidance. "Well, my Hanson-high has dropped. I can't believe they're not going together."

"They're still together aren't they?" Jazz asks worried.

"Oh yeah. They are," Nett assures, though his expression becomes uncertain soon enough. "It's complicated." Nett didn't mean to go on, but Jazz gave him the look saying that she wouldn't let him leave unless she told. Jazz wasn't normally in for gossip but, when it came to her privately three close students, she wanted to know everything. "Come on Jazz you know how these things go. High school sweethearts for a long time until the college comes up?"

"They won't break up will they?"

Nett shrugs. "I have no clue. I don't think I should butt in or anything but I hope they don't," he admits. "Shane just got accepted to this art school all the way in New York."

"Really?"

"Yup. And we're all happy for him and everything but, I think Wendy's kind of sad at the idea of him being so far away. And to be honest so am I, but," Nett sits up. "We're growing up."

"I know," Jazz smiles. "Don't worry Nett. I'm sure everything will work out fine."

Nett scoffs. "Yeah, like back in the day. Jazz that kind of cheesy tv stuff only happened when Wendy had her powers and we had this awesome cool secret to hide. We had like sixty-something happy endings alone in our freshman year. Nowadays we have to just work things out or deal with it."

The bell rings, signaling the start of the school day. "Well, best you get to homeroom," Jazz says apologetically. "Come back to me when you hear anything."

"Anything for you, Ms. A," Nett bids with a laugh.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"What?" Crissy asks in a barely audible exclaim.

Shane rolls his eyes, looking for any way out of this, almost wishing he hadn't done what he'd just done. But there's no way for him to escape. "You heard me," he said lowly.

"Yeah I did I just, _what_?" Crissy repeats.

"Forget it I'll go-"

"No wait!" Crissy calls, pulling violently on Shane's shoulder, almost making him fall back in the process of turning around. "I'm not letting you leave without an explanation. What the hell are you doing asking me to prom? Isn't this Wendy's position?"

"Well yeah but-"

"You're not cheating on her are you?"

"No I-"

"Because if you are I swear I'll get back at you, Shane Johnson. Heck we even used to date! Do you have any idea how bad this looks? Manson and I are even friends and you're just going to ruin it all aren't you-"

"Crissy? Shut up," Shane states, covering her mouth and remaining calm. "I'm not cheating on Wendy. I'm just looking for another date because she can't go."

And of course Crissy's eyes widen and she pushes Shane's hand off her face. "Are you serious? She's not that poor is she?"

Shane makes a face. "That's not the point."

"And why me? I'm like, the worst choice to resort to. Well for you anyway."

"Because I don't know who else to ask," Shane admits, hating the idea. This was going even worse than he thought. Maybe. "In case you haven't noticed I'm not very much of a people person, much less of a flirt. I don't know any other girls besides Wendy. And quite sadly you."

"Ouch," Crissy frowns, crossing her arms.

"So will you or won't? I've got homeroom to get to."

"Before anything, no," Crissy affirms, causing Shane to turn around and walk away. But she runs on her flats up to his front. "But, you're asking Wendy."

"Didn't I just go over this?"

"Didn't I just turn you down?" Crissy mocks in a more arrogant tone. Shane suddenly begins to wonder why he even dated this girl so long ago. "Look. If Manson's that low in cash then I'll pay for her ticket."

"Crissy no it's fine-"

"Do you forget I'm the head of the Prom Committee? I'm in charge of seating and as of now, Wendy Manson's name is now on the list," Crissy smiles with an unconscious flirtatious wink.

"But-"

"No need to thank me. Just make sure you ask her in the most extravagant way possible that she'll just _have_ to tell me about it!"

Shane blinks, clueless. "Even after all this I have to ask her?" Crissy's face pans. "I mean, we're already together does it even matter-?"

"OF COURSE IT MATTERS!" Crissy explodes, catching some unwanted by-passer attention. "Even if you're dating you should still have a prom proposal! It's like Senior Year 101!"

"Sorry I must've missed the memo," Shane says unenthusiastically, holding a finger to his ear. "Are we done?"

"No," Crissy smiles. "Knowing that forever-masculine girlfriend of yours, she hasn't gotten a dress yet."

"So? Go shopping with her I don't know."

"Alas if I go with her she'll be all 'But I'm not going' and it'll ruin the surprise when you ask her!" Shane stands still, taking this all in. _Is she seriously telling me all this_? "So you better persuade her to get the sexiest dress alright?" Crissy says, turning around and strutting away with her bag. She looks back at a still dumbfounded Shane. "Now I'm done."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

I sit alone in the science lab, enjoying my limited free time before being due for homeroom. I sit in the same lab table as I did with Nett back in Freshman year, holding my plucked hair strand under the microscope. As I close in, I see the exact same image as from the textbooks - same old DNA.

For a second I sigh before sitting back. "Of course." I'll do this every other day if I have time to spare. It's like I'm wishing one day I'll magically have ectoplasmic ghost DNA again. Relive the glory days before college and the adult-life kicks in, you know?

But that's never gonna happen.

"Knock knock?" I hear Shane call from the lab entrance.

I look over my shoulder. "Hey. Morning."

"Morning," Shane greets, taking a seat in the stool next to me. "I had a feeling you'd be in here." He leans over my bag. "Looking under the microscope again huh?"

"Yup," I reply solemnly, sitting on my hands. Shane knows more than anyone why I do this. "Can you believe it's already May?"

"Few more weeks and we graduate from Casper High."

"Yeah..." I say a little less enthusiastically. Nett and Shane and everyone else around here is psyched for Summer Vacation. But I've been nothing but an obvious downer on it.

"Hey we'll all still keep in touch," Shane says, reading my mind. "Maybe this can finally be a good excuse for you to finally update your phone."

"Funny," I say with a faint smile, punching him in the arm. _I'll miss having Shane around, too_.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

The school day goes on. Calculus. AP English Lit. Physics. All that stuff. Academics are alright for me but, I still have no idea what I want to do after all my education is over. It's easy for Nett and Shane. Nett into tech and Shane into art. Me? All I'm good at is budgeting the grocery money and skating. Not much of a career image comes to mind.

"Wow, a twenty tip," Jazz compliments as I hang my apron. "Who gave you that one?"

"This nice old lady," I say as I had her my tray too. I work at the Valentine Cafe now to help raise money for college. "She comes here a lot."

"Well that was nice," Jazz notes. Despite being probably a week due she still insists on coming in to work. Does she not understand the term 'maternity leave with pay?' "You'll be missed when you go to college."

"Nah. I'll still be around. Not enough money to dorm." I'll just be going to a nearby local college. Nothing special. Geez, when'd I get so gloomy? "I'll just go now, okay?"

"Alright. Bye Wendy! Get home safe it's dark!"

With my school bag and board, I take off from the cafe and take my usual route home under the full moon. It's cool nights like this that I don't mind skating home. The town's not at scary. Hopefully Mom will be home with something other than vegetable whatever for dinner.

On my way, I realize there's a detour sign and a construction site on my usual route towards home. It's no trouble going around another street, only it ends up being that abandoned street where all the houses and apartments are closed down. And right there on the end-corner of the street is a building I haven't passed in quite a while.

My board skids to a stop until I get off, and I find myself standing outside FentonWorks.

I stay still for a moment, looking up at the ridiculous looking apartment building turned house turned lab turned run down ruin. The place's door is still boarded up and nailed as we left it, but I can't help but have this weird eerie feeling coming from its dark insides. I'm feeling pulled towards the building, but I stop myself. "No Wen, it's nothing."

I kick my board back down with one foot on the front. But just before I push myself forward, I feel a creepy chill and I'm forced to look back. A weird glowing light emits from the low basement window, and it blinks out just as fast.

I know I shouldn't have gone here, and I know I shouldn't have stayed for as long as I did (even if it was only for less than a minute). But now I can't deny it. I saw something down there in the lab. _Danny's Lab_.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Back home, I unlock the front door and my nose is met with the smell of actual food. I deny it at first. "_No_." But it is.

I run to the kitchen and I see Mom seated at the table with a book and a full open box of pizza. Half bacon and half veggie. "You did!" I complete.

"I saw the fridge this morning," Sam sympathizes. "I just realized you had nothing you liked sooo, I ordered out tonight."

"Thank you thank you thank you!" I repeat like a child, dropping all my belongings to give my mom a kiss on the cheek before sitting down across from her to take a piece of my untouched half of the pie. "_Mmmm_," I moan, feeling the heat of the cheese on my lips. Thank God for unhealthy American food.

I see Mom fight the urge to scoff. "So, how was school today?"

"It was fine," I say, swallowing what's in my mouth. Let me recap for a sec. "Um, we had the last Prom Committee meeting today."

"I still don't know why you joined if you're not going," Sam mentions, drinking some tea.

"Crissy signed me up. She said it'd be good Co-Captain bonding or something along the lines of that."

"Well, you're bonded," she notes. A while back into Early Junior year, I finally had the mind to join the Casper High girls Soccer Team, more so I could have a sport to show for my college applications. Yup. Forced myself to put up with Crissy and everything. But along the lines we became good friends. Sort of had to. Then at the start of Senior year, we were both made co-captains. "She's such a nice girl. When she slept over that other day she and I had the most amazing talk about vegetarian recipes," Mom adds.

"I heard," I say, recalling the strange night. How weird a twist it became that Crissy and I would get along so well into our last high school years. I mean, girl-girl sleep overs? They're not exactly my thing but, it had such a different air than my sleepovers with Nett and Shane. Suddenly curious, I ask, "Did you go to your prom, mom?"

A nostalgic smile comes up on her face. "Yeah."

"With Dad?" I ask teasingly.

"Haha, yeah. He was a nervous wreck, but it was a fun night."

"Did Grandma buy your dress?"

"Everything _but_ the dress actually," Sam sighs out, laughing. "She bought me my prom ticket, all the jewelry, the shoes, paid for the limo, the whole enchilada." Sam looks off distantly. "Can't quite remember how I got the dress, but Danny thought I looked real beautiful."

Aw. "Hey, um, Mom? You know FentonWorks?"

"What about it?"

"It's closed down for good right? Like, no one's using it or anything?"

"Tucker has it under the town's private property. No one would be allowed inside," Sam explains before making a face. "Why?"

"Just curious," I lie, eating my pizza. So Mom doesn't know anything. Doubt Tucker would either, or Jazz. I give up thinking about it for a while until I'm back up in my room. It's late. Dark out. And I've got the biggest math test tomorrow I'll probably cram for later.

But I just can't get that strange light out of my head from earlier. Laying in bed trying to block it out doesn't help very much, either. Eventually, I find myself sneaking out with my board, just like the old days.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The Amity Park Cemetery isn't all that far. It's right around the corner a few blocks away. Danny's grave is an easy mark for me to find. I'll come to visit sometimes; normally during the day but, this feels urgent.

I walk up to the slab of stone and stop before it, placing my skateboard down by my feet. "Hey, Danny," I say anxiously, not really knowing what to say. I'll feel a little self-conscious sometimes, wondering if he can really hear me from wherever he is, or if I just look like a fool standing here talking to myself. "It's me, Wendy. Sorry I haven't been around in a while. We just finished finals and all," I greet.

The night wind is chilling, and I feel a little more nerve-wrecked about my setting. The cemetery is not a very nice looking place so late at night. Maybe I shouldn't have gone so quickly. Or alone. "Ugh, what am I doing here?" I say to myself, holding my forehead. "Okay, I'm done being paranoid. Heck I'm almost 18 now." I take a deep breath. "Danny, I think I saw something in the lab and I think it's ghost related. I_ know_ I gave up all hope on anything paranormal existing anymore in Amity Park but I sincerely believe something weird is going down in FentonWorks," I vent out. "So if you have _any_ relative response to that, I'm all open."

I stand for a god minute in front of the tombstone, looking around. But not too much; this place is still eerie to me. Eventually I give out a sigh and turn around. "Guess I don't need any signs after all..."

A step forward is all I get before I feel a sudden, pointing wind hit my back. Goosebumps cover my arms and the air around me gets colder. Fear checks in and I turn back around, looking for any sign of a second presence. I'm all alone, but that sure as hell happened way to fast and way too on time to be a coincidence.

Especially when I see no evidence of wind around me, The tree leaves arne't moving, the grass isn't flowing, and the clouds are as still as glass. There's no way that whole cold-overcoming thing was nature.

Before I know it I'm running down the cemetery up and over tombstones with my board under my arm and my cellphone up to my ear. "Hello? Nett? Shane? This is Wendy. Meet me at FentonWorks. This is important."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

It's 10:30, and over at the Foly residence, Shane and Nett sit up in Nett's room, just hanging out. Nett's on his bed with his laptop while Shane's strumming along a guitar, trying to figure out some chords. Shane still lives with Nett, having his own floor mattress in the opposite corner of the room.

"Stupid essay," Nett pouts. "Jazz knows British Lit so isn't my thing. My couldn't she have me write about quantum physics or the history of NASA or something?"

"Don't ask me. I'm not the one who procrastinated three weeks and asked for two extensions," Shane says while keeping his eyes on his strings, pulling random sounds. However he hears his phone ring and pulls his headphones off for a moment. "Hello?"

"_Nett? Shane? This is Wendy. Meet me at FentonWorks. This is important_," I say on the other line.

"What? Wendy hello?" Shane asks, but the call has ended.

Nett peers over. "What was that?"

"Wendy. She says to go meet up at FentonWorks."

Nett's face contorts into question. "FentonWorks? Why the hell do we need to go there? It's like, eleven o'clock. She's not out this late, is she?"

Shane sighs, aggravated. "Knowing her she's probably already on her way there." Shane sets down his headphones and guitar beside Nett's bed. "Well come on. We better go see what she wants."

"Anything to get out of writing my final." Nett laughs. "Finally some excitement. Whooo let's go!"

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Down by the forever abandoned street stands the legendary FentonWorks building, home to the original ghost hunters of Amity Park. Heh, and to think I descend from them. Ha.

Nett and Shane are walking casually down the street until they see me, kneeling on the sidewalk against the building, bent over and trying to see into the ground floor windows near the concrete.

Nett's the first to speak up. "Wendy what are you doing?" Nett asks warily.

"Hey you made it," I smile, pulling myself up and walking around them towards the door. "Now we can go in."

"'Go in' wait Wendy hold on," Shane stops, halting me after my first two steps onto the stoop. "Care to explain what we're doing here first before _barging_ in on the place we promised to keep locked down?"

"But I _saw_ something, Shane. Earlier. Down there in the lab," I say, trying not to sound as crazy as I, well, sound. "There was this weird light. That ghostly light, you know? And don't you dare say it was something electronic because we shut down the building's power years ago."

"You sure you weren't just seeing things?" Nett asks.

"I mean I thought I was," I admit, scratching my forehead. "Look I know I've been acting kind of weird what with graduation coming up but I swear something was there. I know it!"

Shane's face look skeptical, but I can see I'm getting to him. "Would you feel better if we checked it out?"

"Yeah," I nod heavily. "And if there's nothing there I promise I won't say a word about ghosts ever again."

Shane and Nett look at each other for a moment then at me. After the whole giving-up-my-powers-forever thing, there were occasional times I'd imagine ghosts were still around, or think that maybe Danny was still here somehow. Attachment-problems Mom called it. I got over it after like, a year but, I can't deny what I saw.

Eventually Nett manages to remove the nails over the wood blocking the doorway, and we jump over the rest and into the building. The three of us stand inside the moonlit entrance for a moment, taking in our surroundings. It's been almost four whole years since we stood here. Everything's so dusty and worn down. Not much different from before. It has that antique-thrift store smell, too.

Still... it was _pretty_ freaky being in here again.

"Wow," Nett says first, no one moving. "This was a great idea, coming to FentonWorks at night."

"Just come on," I whisper, going past the guys and towards the kitchen. I remember this place as if it were my own. I mean, in a way it could've been. My own baby nursery room is still upstairs gathering dust. Perhaps in some alternate universe, Mom, Danny, and I would be living in this very place.

I hit the button that opens the passage down into the lab. A dark stairwell appears, with no outside moon light to illuminate the way. This time Shane is here with a mini flashlight from his belt-chain. "Follow me," he says. "And watch your step."

We stay to the right of the stairs, following the wall with our hands and the light Shane's holding. Nett keeps a hand on my shoulder, and I feel him shaking a bit. He's not that scared is he? Then again I don't feel any braver. I guess getting older means losing a bit of your adventurous self.

Going down the stairs feels like an eternity before we finally reach the bottom. Nett's now holding onto both my shoulders while I keep a hold on Shane's arm, careful not to loose him. We stand huddled in a line behind Shane as he spreads the light around the room.

The Fenton Lab is the same as we left it, right before the giant fight. Some of Nett's tools and equipment lie in that old corner, with the remainder of the scraps of the Ecto-Skeleton. Some papers of his old blueprints are scattered around the floor, too. Some broken beaker glass swept to the side of when I'd use them as target practice (which I still never perfected by the way). Nothing's changed.

For a minute I forget someone should be down here.

"We should split up," Shane says, and I accidentally squeeze his arm in reaction.

"Do we have to?" Nett whispers.

"The quicker we search the place the faster we leave, how about that?" Shane rewords. Nett and I aren't moving from our spot but Shane leaves us quickly, with the only light, and Nett's forced to take out his phone rather quickly. We stay huddled together as a pair instead.

As two teams we scour the lab for any signs of inhabitants. Maybe a hobo snuck down here, or some animal. How they could've made the bright ghostly light I'll never know, but I need to find out for myself. "So uh, what exactly did you see, Wen?" Nett asks, clinging to my arm.

"Mm," I think. "It was, that bright icy blue ghostly color. Like a flash or something. Nothing extravagant. But it was coming from the lab."

"What'd I'd give for your ghost sense right about now," Nett says, staying dangerously too close to my back that he almost knocks me over every time I stop. We almost trip together before I send a warning glare back at him. "Sorry! Forgive me for being a bit of a coward when you're used to having super powered friends in a totally supernatural world. Now we're practically in the center of that supernatural hub and you're about as powerful as Mr. Lancer in P.E. And let me remind you that he can barely hold up a dodge ball. Hell even you have better aim than that poor man."

"Shh!" I finally whisper back. "I can't hear anything with you speaking-" I feel a cool 'breeze' along my exposed skin, and I step back into Nett as he steps forward to cling some more. "You felt that?"

"I felt that you felt that?"

"I felt that," I respond again. We look for Shane. "Shane?" I call out. No response. "Shane?" I call a little louder.

"Dude this isn't funny where the hell are you man?" Nett yells, abliet more panicked. Still no reply. And no second source of light, either. "Wendy this was a stupid idea!"

"Uh-" I turn left and right, not knowing what to do. _Something's down here_. "Show yourself!" I yell out, unable to hide my uncertainty and fear. "I-I know you're down here, so just give yourself up!"

"Or what you'll hit him with my phone?" Nett asks with a panned expression. I shrug.

"If that's all you'll do then that's pretty sad," someone says.

"AHHHH!" Nett and I scream, turning around and hugging one another, only to see Shane, standing as stoically calm and still as ever. I hate it. "DUDE THE HELL YOU THINK YOU'RE DOIN MAN?!" Nett screams through his chattering teeth.

Shane rolls his eyes. "Trying not to run into that stupid cobweb on my way over to you guys that's what."

"My God, Shane," I breathe out. I feel like I just had a heart attack. "Didn't you hear us calling you?"

"No...?" Shane says honestly, giving us odd looks. "Didn't you hear me calling you?"

Silently Nett and I shake our heads. "N-No," Nett stammers. The lab's pretty big yeah, but you can hear a dust-ball roll in here.

Something strange is going on in here. Suddenly all our lights go out, and for a moment we're in pitch black. Not even the light from the sidewalk windows can illuminate this place. When our lights switch back on, Shane's gone. "OOoohh Shane's gone!" Nett freaks out, jumping into my arms. I drop him instantly.

"Shane! Shane where'd you go!" I yell, panic-stricken. This isn't funny anymore.

"Wendy!" Nett's light goes out behind me, and I'm in the dark again.

"Nett?" I ask. No response. More anxiety. "Shane? Nett? You guys still here?" Okay, panic and freaking out anxiety. "Guys!?" I'm done.

Out of nowhere I feel gravity taking my body, as if the floor's suddenly disappeared. "AAAAAHHHHH!" My screams echo above me as I feel darkness consume me. Space consumes me and there's no matter around me to stand on or hold onto. I'm falling, and I don't know where to.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"..ndy... ake up...We..n... p. Wake up!"

"Euh?" I blink, feeling a gentle hand slapping the side of my face a little. It's very bright, but the image de-blurs into the silhouettes of Nett and Shane's heads. "Oh, it's your guys..." Weird, I sound a little different.

"Thank God you're awake," Nett expresses. Something's supporting me. It's Shane's arms. And there's other sharp stuff poking at me. Leaves?

"Where are we?" I ask, trying to block out the direct sunlight in my eye. Shane helps me sit up, and I realize something totally off. "_WHOA-_"

"Shh," Shane goes, covering my mouth. "Be quiet."

Shane removes his hand, but my mouth remains open. Shane, and Nett, they- "Y-Your faces. You look-"

"Younger?" Nett finishes, pinching his own cheeks. "Yeah. We know."

"You too," Shane informs. I touch my face. Not that I can tell by doing that, but I must be too if they are. "We look-"

"14?" Nett finishes again. "Freaky right?"

"Wait but, how? And why are we hiding in a bush?"

Nett and Shane carefully stick out heads out of our hiding spot, only for me to realize we're in some park. "Because of that," Shane replies, and I see myself staring at a floating around Skulker. Or, at least I think it's Skulker. He looks different. Well, it's been a while.

Not getting the point, my face lights up. "Skulker!" I realize. "Maybe he knows what's going on! I havent' seen him in so long I-!"

"No no sit back down," Nett calls, pulling on the back of my shirt and making me fall back deeper into the bush. "Bad idea."

"Why?"

"Skulker tried chasing us," Shane whispers, watching Skulker look around. Luckily no one else was around. "It was like he didn't recognize us."

"That's strange," I frown. _And what is Skulker doing in the real world anyway? We sealed off all the portals_. "You don't think he forgot about me do you?"

"As much as I'd love to test that theory I'd vote for staying in the bush," Nett frowns with an off glare.

"Besides, I think Skulker's found his target," Shane says, keeping lookout.

"Who?" Nett and I question.

"You guys might wanna check this out." Following Shane's suggestion, Nett and I peek out heads back out of the bush, only to find Skulker standing across some kid. A teenager who looks a little unsure, yet brave. Stupid. But brave.

But that's not all that's catching out attention. "No way," Nett says, glasses falling slightly forward.

"Danny?" I say breathlessly.

* * *

**Ahaaa - they've met DANNY! HE ISN'T GONE FOREVER!**

**College is going well so far, and I have no idea if it's gonna change how I work or how I write, but doing fanfics is still one of my favorite pastimes :)**

**Thanks again! **

**PREVIEW:**

_**"Do we really wanna reveal ourselves?" Shane asks cautiously. "We have no idea what we're messing with here or how we even got here in the first place."**_

_**"Well then how do you propose we get back home?" I counter. "We're stuck here and those guys would be the only ones who'd understand our predicament."**_

_**"What you mean if we lie?"**_

_**"Bingo."**_

_**x-x-x-x**_

_**"So, we've talked," Danny starts. "And under the, uh, circumstances, I'm guessing you guys will be needing a place to stay?"**_

**No. Too far. No. No no no no. Bad idea Wendy.**_** No no no THAT'S A BAD IDEA."O-Oh no it's fine we just-"**_

_**"No seriously. If you're from the future then leaving you guys around probably wouldn't be the best idea," Danny corners, cutting me off. As suspicious as he and Sam and Tucker already are there's no way they're letting us out of their sight. "So you can stay with Sam here in the meantime while the guys stay with me."**_

_**x-x-x-x**_

_**"A feeling," Tucker states. "You're saying from a freaking feeling that these guys are telling the truth."**_

_**Danny shrugs. "They don't look like bad guys."**_

_**"Neither did Spectra," Sam utters, making his distrust as obvious as possible.**_

_**x-x-x-x**_

_**"So how do you really know Danny?" Sam asks. "From the future..." she adds.**_

_**"He's... just really famous in the underground ghost world." What mess have we gotten ourselves into?**_


	2. Reverse Order Pt2

"What are you doing here, Skulker!" this teenage-Danny orders out. Oh God. He sounds like Danny. Just, a little higher pitched. He's a bit scrawnier too. And... alive. Totally human and _alive_. Same black hair and blue eyes, too. It's Danny as a kid.

"Holy shit-!" Shane and I are forced to cover Nett's mouth together with our hands ad duck back into the bush before his loud reaction can be heard - and us dragged into this.

"I've been looking for you, Phantom!" Skulker grins, preparing very familiar visuals of weaponry I too have been threatened with once upon a time. Danny looks very nervous. Was that me once? "I've come for a rematch!"

Suddenly this other girl appears and suddenly slides right in between Skulker and Danny, catching both off guard. "To be the pelt at the foot of your bed? No thanks!"

"No freaking way," Shane narrows, seeing the girl. Meanwhile my mouth is hanging open. _Mom_?

"Sam what are you doing?" Danny whispers accusingly. "What happened to hiding as the surprise-backup?"

"Well the element of surprise reeked after Tucker back there cut the cheese."

"And that's my dad," Nett says with an expectant face, wherever the young mayor may be.

"Guys?" I say breathlessly. "I think we've gone back in time."

A huge smirk appears over the robotic-ghost's face. "No matter! Two for the price of one fits just fine!"

"Going ghost would be nice now, Danny," Sam grits through her teeth, standing right in Skulker's line of fire.

"R-Right!" Danny jumps. "Going ghost!" Suddenly Danny jumps out from behind Sam and all of us watch in awe as a familiar glowing ghostly ring forms around young Danny. _He's going ghost_. The ring separates into two, going up and down and transforming Danny's body into that of a ghost, complete with the black suit and white hair and green eyes. _He's a halfa_.

The three of us gape from our bush as Danny floats up to fight Skulker. He's about to fire an ecto-beam from what it appears, however nothing comes out. A tiny green spark fall out of Danny's palm, and embarrassed slightly he stares down at his hand. "Really?"

"Am I the only one getting a major sense of deja vu here?" Nett asks.

"What - that Danny as a kid may have actually been worse than Wendy here?" Shane mentions. Ouch.

"Danny come on!" Sam yells from the ground.

"I'm trying!" Danny shouts, attempting to punch Skulker, only for the muscular ghost to move to the side in a simple dodge. This throws Danny off balance in the air, and his aimless right hook ends up flailing his weightless ghost-body in circles.

"I think Shane may be actually right," I say with an arched eyebrow. Danny's actually... _really_ bad. "I know I was a wreck when I got my powers but, this is just sad." Danny manages to hit Skulker (somehow), but a loud clang hits at a huge pain in Danny's knuckles. Double ouch. "What the heck's going on?"

"Besides Danny being the noob?" Nett asks as we all wince simultaneously. Danny flies straight back and into the grass in a line of dirt he's made.

"Danny!" Sam yells, running over to the ghost. Skulker lands right behind them, defenseless. "Danny get up get up!"

"Argh! I did this right yesterday!" Danny repeatedly tries to shoot ecto-beams from his hands, but nothing comes out. "I'm not working!"

"Say goodbye! _Whelp_!" Skulker laughs, holding an extra-large glowing canon above their figures.

No no no no! "FOCUS YOUR ECTO ENERGY INTO YOUR ARM AND SHOOT!" I scream at the top of my lungs. Having no sense of what I may have done, I feel Shane and Nett's stares on my head as I see Danny react.

Despite his confusion, Danny heeds my faceless advice and soon enough his arm tingles with energy and a ball of green light forms in his hand. "Aha!" A huge ball of ectoplasmic energy shoots out of the ghost boy's hand and hits Skulker up into the air. He flies up not too far, but obviously damaged enough from the hit back to the ground. "I-I did it!" Danny realizes.

Skulker shakes his head to regain his sense of flight. "Grrr, you will pay for that, ghost child! I-!" An old ringtone emits from the fight, and I squint my eyes to try and see what's going on. Skulker's looking at his arm at what appears to be some old phone thing. "Go research Purple Back Gorillas at the Library- Good grief not again."

I watch dumbstruck as Skulker's wing jets take him away from the park site, and unwillingly away from his current opponent.

Danny and Sam lay in the grass in the same confusion before a third teen appears from behind a nearby tree. "Weird, Skulker's still connected to my PDA planner," says a red-hatted boy with glasses says. "Not that I'm complaining."

"We owe you one Tuck," Danny grins as he gets up with Sam.

"Whoa," Shane says. "It's Mr. Foley."

"What the heck is my dad doing still wearing that stupid hat?" Nett adds with an embarrassed face.

"Hold on guys, didn't you hear that back there?" Sam brings up, and I sink back a bit into the leaves. Uh oh. "There was this voice calling out to us before."

"To me, I think," Danny says, staying on his guard as a ghost. He looks around the empty patch of grass they're in, completely hidden by the tall trees around them. "My ghost sense isn't going off. Is anyone there!"

I look to my friends with the same expression. Do we hide? Do we come out? I don't know. "What do we do?" Nett asks in a panicked whisper.

"Come out!" Danny says warningly. A squirrel or something ruffles from another bush, and I hear Danny blast the bush, nothing in it. Mm, maybe I shouldn't have given him the hint about his attack after all .

"Do we really wanna reveal ourselves?" Shane asks cautiously. "We have no idea what we're messing with here or how we even got here in the first place."

"Well then how do you propose we get back home?" I counter. "We're stuck here and those guys would be the only ones who'd understand our predicament." I'm met with _really_ opposing 'seriously?' expressions by Nett and Shane together.

"Maybe it was just in your head, man," Tucker tells Danny.

"Yeah. Maybe," Danny says, still wary of the area. "Mm. Oh well. Let's go back."

The three teens are about to leave through an opening in the trees back to the rest of the park, but against Nett and Shane's urges I jump out of the bush to call out to them. "Wait!" I yell, running a few feet away from the bush.

Tucker, Sam, and ghost-mode Danny turn around, a faint ectoplasmic ball in hand. But I hold my hands up in surprise as my running slows to a stop. Danny lets his guard down, too, at my appearance.

"It's just another kid," Tucker guesses.

"Danny wait, it's okay! I'm a friend!" I say, hands still open. It's fair to assume he doesn't know me. None of them know me. How could they? _We're in the past_. "I'm the one who told you how to blast Skulker."

"How does she know Skulker?" Sam asks suspiciously.

"Forget that. How does she know Danny's name?" Tucker adds, just as defensive.

However Danny seems to be warming up to me. He looks me straight in the eyes, and I feel like I'm looking my ghost-reflection. I inherited those ghostly traits, once long ago. "I'm Wendy," I say, having to bite my tongue to prevent myself from saying any last names. Manson wouldn't work. Fenton would be even worse. Just Wendy is fine. "I'm a friend," I repeat. Danny arches his eyebrows one more time before putting down his arm. "I have friends with me too," I start cautiously. "C-Come out guys."

Oh please may they come out and not leave me hanging.

Soon enough I hear a rustle in the bushes behind me, and Shane and Nett slowly reveal themselves too. Our two groups, three and three, walk to up each other. Defensive expressions line each person's face, except Danny's and mine. Ours are more... curious than defensive.

_This is my dad... He doesn't even know I'm his daughter_. I try not to look my mom in the eyes. She seems a bit more intimidating in this time. Even if she doesn't know it yet, I feel like even as a teenager she may be able to penetrate my thoughts and read everything on me. That's what moms do. _And that's _my_ mom_.

"So, what are you guys?" Danny asks first, still in ghost mode. He wouldn't change back in front of us.

_What are we_? "We're..." Nett trails off.

"We're from out of town," I say with a straight face. Nett and Shane shut up, following my lead. "The three of us are a part of a ghost-hunting investigation group."

"We have those?" Tucker asks.

"Yeah..." Nett says unsurely. Gee thanks, dude.

"It's an undercover kids thing," I say with a shrug. "But we know about you Danny."

"How?"

Too many questions. "We're..."

"We should just tell them," Shane speaks for the first time, opting Nett and me to send wide glares to our assumingly quiet comrade.

"Tell us what?" Sam says cautiously, crossing her arms. Yeah Shane tell them what?

"That we're from the future," Shane says flat faced, and I feel a mental frying pan smack me in the face. _FORWARD MUCH?_ "We're a part of a secret ghost hunting youth unit and we've been sent back by Clockwork to lay some groundwork here."

... What the hell?

"You guys know Clockwork," Danny repeats, eyes narrowed. I hope that's a good thing.

"And how do we know we can trust you guys?" Sam says, coming up in front of me and Danny. Oh man I'm looking her in the eye. "Well?"

"We-," I gulp. "I dunno. You just have to," I say from the heart. I look to Danny first, hoping the words that come out of my mouth are the right words. I need to assure them somehow that we're _not_ bad guys. "You're Danny Phantom, half ghost half kid, right." I notice the apparent hint of surprise on their faces. Is surprise good? I dunno. It's better than Mom's scowling. "I know because... I used to be one," I say lastly, contemplating it in the milliseconds I had to think.

"A Halfa," Danny asserts. I nod. "From the future?" He sooo isn't buying it.

I nod again. "Yeah. I mean, before, but I remember the technicalities," I mention last minute, if that's any help.

"That'd explain how she knew how to start up your ecto-beam," Sam says suspiciously, looking to Danny.

"So they do ghost-DNA experimentations in the future?" Tucker asks us curiously. That must be his reasoning as to how I got my powers.

"Um, I guess," I say unsure, wondering why Shane and Nett aren't speaking up any more. Thanks a lot, guys.

It's silent. Too silent. I steal quick glances to the side at Tucker then at Sam. Tucker appears to be studying us. Mom's just glaring at us.

"Okay, group huddle!" Sam suddenly calls, pulling both her friends away from our group to speak in private.

Shane, Nett and I are left standing in our three-person line, as still as statues. Are we allowed to talk? Is it too suspicious?

"_I don't like this_," Nett grits through his teeth, trying to make it look like he isn't moving. I can tell now nervous he must be.

"Neither do I but what else can we do?" Shane whispers.

"At least I'm not the one who stated we were from the future - You have any idea how outrageous that sounds?" I accuse back at Shane.

"Forget that. They're over there; talking about us," Nett utters, making us look over to their trio. I wonder what they're saying in their huddled bunch.

"A feeling," Tucker repeats. "You're saying from a freaking feeling that these guys are telling the truth."

Danny shrugs innocently. "They don't look like bad guys."

"Neither did Spectra," Sam mutters.

Tucker shakes his head in shame. "Dude, you're too much of a nice guy."

"Okay well-" Danny looks back at us for a second. "We can't really just leave them alone. I mean if they _are_ bad guys then leaving them alone in the city isn't the best idea."

"So what do you plan, genius?" Tucker interrogates. "Inviting them to live with us?"

"W-Well, we have to keep an eye on them right? Since they're stuck here, according to them?" Danny begins. "I'll take the two guys to stay with me for a bit. Sam you take the girl."

"... Dude I wasn't serious," Tucker starts.

"What?!" Sam says a little too loudly. It's a whisper nonetheless but it looked and sounded pretty noticeable from where we stood. "No way. I'm not doing it."

"Come on Sam I can't have some strange girl sleeping over at my place. You know how parents are," Danny tries to reason. "Just come up with an excuse or something. It's only temporary - until I can figure this out. I can't ignore the fact they know Clockwork."

"Or the fact that they knew who you were," Sam adds with a frown.

"Just look at it this way okay; if we split them up when we can interrogate them somehow and tell what's real and what's a lie, how about that?" Danny tries to reason.

Sam has this look on her face that looks incompliant and placid, but she eventually gives in. "Fine."

And... now they're looking back at us. "They're coming," Nett freaks. Once again our group is face to face with theirs in our previous line up. It's a silent grouping once more, but ghost Danny speaks on their behalf.

"So, we've talked," Danny starts. (obviously). "And under the, uh, circumstances, I'm guessing you guys will be needing a place to stay."

_Needing a place to stay_. No. Too far. No. Bad idea Wendy. "O-Oh no it's fine we just-"

"No seriously. If you're from the future then leaving you guys around probably wouldn't be the best idea," Danny says, cutting me off. "So you can stay with Sam here in the meantime while the guys stay with me."

"He's got a pretty big house," Tucker assures. Sam says nothing.

"Uh..." I look back at Shane and Nett. No reactions whatsoever. _Are they that petrified_. "Sure," I reply to Danny. "Thank you that'd be great."

"You know, it's kind of cool to meet another Halfa. Well. Sort of. Former Halfa," Danny smiles warmly, holding up his hand for me to shake. I watch miraculously as Danny changes from his ghost mode to his human form before us. Sam's eyes look a little wary, but I'm too focused on seeing my father right in front of me. I'm trying not to look too in shock. "It's nice to meet you, uh, Wendy."

Mentally I slap my face and force myself to accept the hand shake. "Me too." I look back at my still slightly and mentally disturbed friends. They just saw Danny transform. _I_ used to transform like that. "The one with glasses here is Nett. And the quiet guy here is Shane."

"Hey," Tucker smiles.

"Hey," Sam says, no longer scowling, but not smiling either. I can tell it'll take a while to get to her.

"Hey..." Nett and Shane reply together, trying not to sound too out of it after having seen Danny. I understand their shock but now isn't the time to gape in awe, guys.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

So, from where we were in the park, Shane Nett and I have _somehow_ travelled back in time to when our parents were kids. And now _we're_ 14 again. And somehow we've agreed to staying. Temporarily.

Only I'm staying with Mom, who I need to call Sam. And Sam doesn't like me so now I'm stuck and I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.

"Just stay quiet and let me do all the talking," she says once we reach this apartment-like building. It's not the one Mom and I live in now. Must be different one. "Got it?"

"Got it," I reply calmly. She _really_ doesn't like me. _I hope Shane and Nett are doing okay_.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"New friends at school huh?" an orange man asks.

Four boys sit in a line on a couch at FentonWorks. Tucker. Shane. Nett. Danny. Facing another couch seating the infamous Jack and Maddie Fenton. Shane's had to remind Nett to remain calm upon reaching FentonWorks. As in, a not rundown and dusty and grafittied FentonWorks. Everything in the building's living room looked so alive compared to its future of abandon.

And now they're facing Danny's parents for permission to stay.

"Y-Yeah, Mr. Fenton. They're uh, part of this new exchange program and Mr. Lancer forgot to find them families to stay with," Tucker invents. "Naturally Danny volunteered. Sure maybe he didn't ask you first but-"

Danny somehow shuts Tucker up. "So can they stay?" Danny interrupts. "It's just for a few days."

Maddie Fenton's smile returns a bit faster than Jack's. "Any friend of Danny's is welcome into the Fenton house. Isn't that right Jack?"

The man of the house looks unmoved. "Do you guys eat a lot of _food_?" Jack asks, leaning forward with crossed arms. Guess the man likes to keep his food.

Nett blinks, slowly losing consciousness to nerves of having such an intimidating man an inch away from him. "Uh..."

"They like ghosts?" Tucker mentions randomly. And all of a sudden Jack Fenton's face lights up a color birghter than his jump suit.

"Ghosts?!" the man exclaims, further scaring Nett. "Well why didn'cha say so before?! Of course you boogers can stay, haha! You know, there was a time when I was your age where I was very much into the science of ghost and abnormalities across the city."

Danny sighs in relief as Tucker gives Shane and Nett a thumbs up. Mr. Fenton is still going on about his own old glory days, but they passed. Maddie starts walking Jack out of the room. "Well that was easy," Shane sighs out, just as relieved as Danny once the parents leave - Jack still going on and on to Maddie.

"Hope Sam's doing okay with your friend," Tucker remembers. Nett and Shane exchange secret knowing glances.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

_Whoa_. I stand before Mom's parents. _My_ grandparents. I can't get over the shock. I don't know if it's from the fact that Grandma and Grandpa look so young or the fact that they actually dressed like that. Nonetheless I shut up like M- _Sam_ told me to.

_It's Sam, Wendy. Sam. Not Mom. Sam_. I can't screw up here.

"Danny's cousin?" Grandma repeats. Can I really pull that off?

"Yeah," Sam continues as calmly as ever. Almost boredly. "She needs a place to stay while she's in Amity Park."

"Well why not with the Fentons?" Grandpa asks, obviously not liking the idea of me staying here. _Geez does all of Mom's family hate me_?

Sam rolls her eyes. "That's the last thing she'd want, Dad. Wendy's not a ghost person, and you know Danny's parents. They're brainwash her." Sam grabs my shoulders. "Please don't send her back there. She needs somewhere normal to stay okay?"

Somehow just that part of the explanation wins Sam's mom over, and all of a sudden I find myself in a highly perfumed embrace. "Oh you poor thing! Being related to those hooligans!" She lets go and looks me straight in the face with this winning 'mom' smile. "A friend of Sam and a fiend of paranormalities is a friend of ours! Welcome to the family!"

Sam rolls her eyes again and grabs me away from her mother. "Geez Mom she's staying for a few days we're not adopting her."

"Be sure to show her the nice guest room okay?" she calls after us as Sam leads me away forcefully. She responds with a 'Yeah-yeah', but I'm too busy wondering where we're heading.

"Um, where are we going?" I ask as we head down a hallway I believe is towards a bathroom and closet. Aren't the bedrooms upstairs?

"Your room, what else?" she replies back flatly. Soon enough, the hallway appears bigger right around the corner, revealing more doors. Larger and more regal ones even. Walking down, I see rectangular glass windows peering into movie theaters, bowling allies, mansion-kitchens. Good God where have I gone?

"Um..." I say, a little unprepared. "Where are we again?"

"My place," Sam says, hopefully understanding why I'm so shocked. "Don't ask, but we're kind of loaded."

"_Kind of?_" I quote, looking down the hot spa bathroom. _How the heck does all this fit in this tiny building_? I mean I know Grandma and Grandpa are pretty well-off in their country side home back in our time, but Mom's never told me that she was _rich_ when she was a kid.

We finally reach a smaller hallway with fewer doors, resembling our house back in my time. She opens one door, revealing a very... gothic like world. "This is my room," she clarifies. She then opens the door across. "And that one is yours," she finalizes. "You don't step into mine then I don't step into yours. Deal?"

"But-"

"Look," she cuts off. "I got you a place to stay, so let's just leave it at that okay? I don't know who you are or what you're planning, but just because Danny and Tucker trust you doesn't mean I have to."

"Which I  
completely understand," I say with my hands up. "But-"

While I'm taking to Sam, I can't help but see over her shoulder and int her room. And right there resting on her bed I see a familiar set of books. "Are those the Dark Rose Cavern novels?" I say out of the blue.

"The Dark Rose-?" Sam looks back, noticing a couple of books littering the end of her bed. She looks back at me with this odd distinguished face, and I wonder if I shouldn't have said that. "You know that series?"

I smile a little, thinking of it. Maybe we have a connection after all."Yeah. I used to read them all the time back home."

Sam steps back a bit and lets me enter the room. We go over to her bed as I sit and pick up one of the hardcover books. They look so well-conditioned. _Mom would read these to me_.

"How do you know about it?" Sam asks, just friendly-curious sounding. "Isn't exactly a mainstream thing."

"Oh no. Not at all. That's what makes the books so good," I say, forgetting who I'm talking to and just agreeing. "My Mom would read it all the time to me as a little kid-" I stop mid-sentence, noticing another book amongst them. "Is that book three?"

"Yeah."

"Oh my gosh..." I gape, holding the book as if it were the bible. And in mint condition. "My Mom lost book three. She'd read me one through fourteen but I'd always wonder what happened in the third."

"Really now..." Sam says, crossing her arms, intrigued. "What's your favorite part in book fourteen?"

"The ending of course," I fan, just going on and on. I forget who I'm talking to "When the princess finally wakes up and realizes everything was just a dream? It's mind shattering."

"Shoot, seriously?" Sam asks, trying not to laugh. "Man. Now it all makes sense."

I send her a questionable look. "Why?"

"The series only came out two years ago," Sam tells me, and I realize I've been busted. "_And_ book fourteen isn't even out yet, much less book seven, but thanks for spoiling it for me anyway."

"I-"... What do I say? Am I caught or something? Did I do something I shouldn't have?

"So you would read these when you were little huh?" Sam repeats, sitting on the bed as well to glance over the novels. "So you really are from the future."

"Yeah..." I say, still holding one of her books.

Then, _just_ then, I think I get a smile from her. "Your mom had good taste."

Seeing Sam smile at me like that eased something inside me, and I have the comfort to smile back at her. "She did."

Sam sits back in her bed, looking around her room. I do as well, and I take in Mom's young, hot-headed teen image. Mom was seriously a Goth. I mean, I knew it from what she'd tell me and what I'd find in her old things, but she was really hardcore Goth. Her room is _black_. "I know it's weird," Sam speaks up. "My room."

"No it's totally cool," I say otherwise, admiring the design of it all. "No one's into this retro stuff anymore in my time."

"Goth is retro?" Sam asks, amused. I nod. "... Sweet," she grins nodding, and I just burst into laughter. As does she. I'm beginning to remember my relationship with my mom, how it was more like a sisterhood than a mom-daughter relationship. Even here. "Wendy, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

"I'm glad," I laugh, trying to stop. It hurts to laugh still. "I was afraid you'd hate me forever."

"Well can you blame me? Ghosts around every corner? Not knowing who to trust or who'll attack your friends? Sorry I was so snappy earlier."

"No I completely get it," I nod, assuring her. I remember those days. Danny's stupid ghost tests heightening my anxiety to levels I could never dream of again. "Danny's still in his early stages. He needs the overprotective friends."

Sam smiles. "So how do you really know Danny?" Sam asks. "From the future," she adds.

"He's... just really famous in the underground ghost world," I come up with. Well he is. Was. Whatever. "No one really knows about ghosts, but my friends and I do."

"Because you had ghost powers," Sam recalls.

"Yeah." _Had_. "Not anymore."

"Well why don't you just get them back?"

"Get them back?" It sounds like a really good joke, so I stifle a laugh. This time I'm the one giving her the weird looks. "How?" I ask for laughs.

She's looking at me like I'm nuts or something. Face totally serious. It's like I just missed the rule on how to add one plus two. "You change your DNA back..." she says slowly as if it were common sense, and my face slowly matches hers. "Wasn't that how you originally got your ghost powers?"

"Something like that..." I say distantly. _So it's possible... to really get my powers back_.

"You could, you know," Sam mentions, crossing her legs on her bed. "I mean that's how Danny first got his powers."

Astonishment. "Really?" I ask. "I didn't know that."

"A little before high school started," Sam recalls sitting back in her bed. "He got into an accident and boom, half kid half ghost. What about you?"

Instead of answering some quick lie, I shrug. "Still kind of a mystery to me." But have I ever really thought about it? How my dad got his powers? I mean, I guess at one point I must've guessed he was born with it or something like me. I probably should've asked when he was still around. "So for Danny it just, happened? It was that easy?"

Sam nods. "Yeah. You could, too, you know - get your powers back. It's not rocket science. Technically."

As tempting as it sounds... I probably shouldn't. "I think I'll pass."

Sam arches her eyebrows at me. "Now I know you aren't evil if you're passing up a chance to get ghost powers. Why not?" she asks curiously.

Yeah Wendy why not? I shrug. "I dunno. It just... wouldn't feel right," I manage out. "Heh. It's ironic, really. I've been dreaming for years of always getting my powers back somehow. Going ghost again and fighting evil like I used to before I became normal again." I shake my head in the returning nostalgia. "But, my powers had a time. I lost them, because it was the right time to lose them. I don't need them anymore." Right?

Sam appears distraught by my noble idea of being normal forever. But it passes. "Well, suit yourself."

* * *

**Second chapter up!**

**PREVIEW:**

**_"So where exactly are you guys from?" Danny asks curiously._**

**_"About twenty-something years into the future," Shane says, trying to figure out the math. "Amity Park looks so different from back home."_**

**_x-x-x_**

**_"Wendy used to have ghost powers just like Danny," Sam brings up. I blink my eyes twice. "Why don't you teach Danny a thing or two on how to control them?"_**

**_Shane's eyes widen as Nett's face contorts. Meanwhile mine is full of either horror or plain surprise. "M-Me?"_**

**_"Yeah. You could be Danny's ghost teacher while you're here."_**

**_x-x-x_**

**_"Shane, we're eighteen now," I remind him. "We may not look like it right now but we're going to graduate. We're going to college. I've had my days wishing I was a super-kid again but I have to stop sometime, okay?"_**

**_"If we're going to graduate and grow up, might as well go out with a bang like we used to."_**


	3. Reverse Order Pt3

While I'm with Sam at the Mansion's apartment, Nett and Shane were taken to Danny's place, courtesy of Danny and Tucker.

"You guys can stay in my room I guess," Danny says, opening up his door. Shane and Nett peer in after Tucker and Danny enter. It's nostalgic of the old haunted FentonWorks from the future they came from. And totally different. Shane recognizes the room as Wendy's bright-painted baby bedroom, full of dusty un-played-with stuffed animals. In a past life, the room belonged to a teenage boy who loved astronauts and chili-dog wrappers.

"Thanks," Nett says, stepping in alongside Shane. He can see Tucker and Danny setting up a spot in the corner of the room for them, clearing some junk and boxes and figurines.

"Sorry the place is kinda messed up. Wasn't exactly expecting visitors," Danny says politely, shoving some toy spaceships to the side. "I can get some mattresses or sleeping bags up here by tonight."

"Thanks Danny," Shane smiles, feeling slightly sorry for the trouble. Even as a kid Danny was hospitable.

"I'm gonna go ask your mom if she has anything," Tucker says, deciding to take a momentary leave. Before he goes out the door, he gives Danny a look that says he's watching them (Nett and Shane), before leaving. Danny rolls his eyes at his friend's overprotection.

Nonetheless the two visitors can't help but feel awkward around their young clueless former-teacher. "So uh," Nett begins awkwardly. "Interesting set up here... for uh..." Nett glances at a calendar. "2007." His face breaks. "Wow you're old."

"Uh, thanks?" Danny says unsure with a slight laugh. "I think."

"Forgive my friend. He's rather blunt," Shane says with crossed arms and his trademark emotionless expression.

Nett scoffs. "I don't wanna hear that from you."

"So where exactly are you guys from?" Danny asks curiously, sitting on his bed.

"About twenty-something years into the future," Shane says, trying to figure out the math. "Amity Park looks so different."

Nett didn't mean to join in on conversation, much less start his own, but he couldn't help but notice something along the background on Danny's desk. "Oh my gosh is that a Fenton Thermos?"

Danny turns to follow Nett's gaze, and sees the thermos laying on his desk among his school books. He wasn't expecting them to know what it was. "Yeah it is," Danny says, slightly impressed. "How'd you know?"

"W-Well I mean I've been replicating them for years but, this is the genuine original design," Nett geeks out, walking over to it and inspecting it, not even touching it. "Chrome material, ecto-capacity cells along the edges incased; it has all the works and original parts it's amazing."

"Uh, yeah," Danny laughs.

"Mhm. Stop geeking out, Nett," Shane frowns, finding this only a little embarrassing. _Kill me_. "We uh, used Nett's thermoses back home to catch ghosts back then. Not exactly like this but close."

"The Fenton Thermoses?"

"From your original design and blueprints and everything," Nett says, still inspecting it without any skin-contact.

"My dad's designs, really. But you guys really know your stuff," Danny says, a little bewildered by this information. He looks to Shane. "So uh, how famous _are_ ghosts in the future anyway?"

"Not that famous," Shane says. "The three of us would hunt ghosts in Amity Park." _Don't say too much_.

"I see," Danny nods, getting to know them better. "No wonder you guys know Clockwork. He must've been the ones who got you guys here, right? I mean, how else would you have gotten here?"

Shane's eyes lower. How _did_ they get there? "Yeah..."

"So do you guys know what you're looking for?" Danny asks ever so curiously, turning from Shane to Nett. The two glance at one another. "You know for Clockwork? If you want I can help you out."

The charades will only get harder from here on out, the boys guessed. Shane and Nett give each other a nice long stare in the eye before one of them finally speaks. "Clockwork didn't send us here," Nett finally admits.

"But someone did," Shane narrows. Danny looks to him for answers. "To be honest Danny we're not some professional hunting unit."

"Well, as far as they go we were," Nett mutters, going through Danny's astronaut books. Shane leans over to send the Foley a look.

"So if not, what are you guys?" Danny asks. It was a clever interrogation. Danny's nice exterior. His calm way of conversation and question. "Stupid question but should I be afraid?"

Nett laughs. "If anything _we_ should be. You're the one with ghost powers not us," Nett grins, remembering the old days.

Shane does, too. "We're just three kids who got sent back in time, that's all. We just happened to know who you were and, now we're seeing you face to face."

"Am I famous or something in the future?" Danny asks, a little paranoid looking. Perhaps bothered.

Nett and Shane look at one another again, more in a questioning manner. Was he? Nah. "No," both answer simultaneously.

Ouch. "Oh, then..."

"You were um, how do I put this," Shane starts, trying to think of something without spilling to much. "You were Wendy's teacher."

"Teacher?" Danny repeats with slight disgust.

"Ghost teacher," Nett smiles, a little proud. "You taught her how to kick ass and everything- uh, butt. Kick _butt_ and everything." Nett corrects, blinking. He realizes at this age, he has to limit his cursing. Shane can't help but laugh a little on the inside.

"Wendy - that girl right?" Danny recalls. "She said she was a Halfa, didn't she?"

"Um, sort of," Nett picks up. "Long story."

Danny sits back a bit to take in this new information. "Wow, to think I actually know what I'm doing in the future," Danny smiles, before looking at his hand. "That's good to know." Shane takes note of Danny's image - him looking at his hand. It was a habit he would always see me do. "So how did Wendy get her powers, anyway?"

"What do you mean?" Nett starts. "The same way you got yours, right? What with you having this big ghost-hunting family. Your folks must've passed it down or something right?"

Danny resists the urge to laugh. "Oh God no. I mean, at least I don't think so," Danny smiles. "It was actually because of a-"

"Danny!" A red-headed girl bursts in without warning. Or knocking. And Nett and Shane have to mentally hold their jaws from dropping upon seeing their new visitor. "What's Mom talking about us having visitors staying over huh?" She looks ticked off.

"Relax they're staying in my room," Danny defends, somewhat annoyed stricken. "And would it kill ya to knock first? You think me finally being a teenager would earn me some privacy points around here."

The younger Jazz figure frowns before crossing arms. "Not while I'm around. Having more of you is just what I need for my senior year." The girl makes eye contact with both Nett and Shane one at a time. "So who are you guys anyway?"

"Shane-Nett." Both boys reply, somewhat more from shock than from anxiety or nervousness. Jazz looks so... young. And not pregnant... And a spazz.

"Yeah," Jazz says suspiciously. "Just stay out of my room got that?" With that last note Jazz closes the door behind her, leaving the boys to their conversation.

"..." Danny looks to both of the guys. "Sorry about that. That's my sister Jazz."

"R-Right," Nett begins, not quite sure how to react. He's still staring off at the shut door. "Does she know? About you and your uh, stuff?"

"Jazz? Hope not," Danny frowns, obviously put off by the idea of anyone knowing his secret. "She already thinks I'm enough of a high school freak. Adding paranormal experiences to the list will give her a permanent excuse to psychoanalyze me every breakfast."

"Yo guys," Tucker says, peeking in. "Sam just called saying we should meet her and Wendy at the Nasty Burger."

"Guess Wendy's finally settled in," Danny realizes. He stands up. "Hope Sam's not ragging on her too much."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"Okay so I called Tucker to meet us at the Nasty Burger with the guys," Sam finishes, walking me to their hang out. "They should be there by now probably."

"The Nasty Burger," I repeat, wondering what it looks like now in this time. "Wow. Amity Park looks so different here."

"How so?"

"Less cars on the street, that's for sure," I note, looking for more differences as I tap my finger upon my chin. "The trees are smaller." I look even higher. "The buildings are shorter, too."

"I'm guessing they totally urbanized Amity Park in the future," Sam figure with a disappointed frown. "Figures." I smile a little noticing the tiny similarities between Sam and her adult-self in the future. Mom never did like Tucker's decisions to 'improve' the city of Amity Park. Even here she still doesn't.

We eventually arrive outside the Nasty Burger, which looks so brand new and shinier. They had hedges and a giant sign. Wonder why they got rid of that back home. Despite the outward appearance, I can still smell that greasy burger smell I always notice when I pass by.

When we enter, the interior is a whole lot different. Better in my opinion. It's like an old-classic diner. I have a notion of coming to the Nasty Burger and always seeing the same people in it. Same customers - same high schoolers and registers. Here it's totally different. "There's the guys," Sam says, snapping me out of my observance. Looking over I see them sitting in a circular booth.

As Sam leads me over, the four guys stop their talk and make room for us. "Look who finally showed up," Tucker says.

"So you got the okay with the Fentons for them to stay?" Sam asks as she slides in a booth next to Danny, who's next to Tucker. Meanwhile I slide in next to Shane, who's next to Nett.

"Surprisingly enough yeah," Danny replies. "What about you?"

Sam and I look at each other for a split second, and she respond for me. "We're good."

"You guys are okay with this, right?" Danny asks, suddenly remembering us in their awkward presence.

"Oh don't worry about us. We're okay," I smile assumingly. Taking with Sam all this time has actually calmed my nerves. A lot. "Thanks for being so hospitable to us."

"Shane and Nett me about how you guys ended up here," Danny mentions, and I send the guys a questioning look. "How you ended up here by accident somehow?"

"To be honest it's still a mystery to us," Shane admits. I can't help but know they must've split us up for some sort of 'friendly interrogation', but maybe it's easier this way. "One minute we're in the dark. The next thing I know, we wake up here just in time to see you guys and Skulker."

"And we, sort of spilled that Danny was kind of your teacher back in the day," Nett adds to me, and I glance at Danny for a split second. _He knows now?_ "Ghost teacher."

Why the hell did you tell Danny _that_? "Oh," I blink. Is it a good thing he knows?

"So you guys do know each other," Sam realizes, looking from Danny to our group. She doesn't seem mad, or angry, or suspicious anymore. "Anything else you boys gossiped about?"

"What about you two?" Tucker asks, looking at Sam and me. "What'd you girls bond over? I see you're not as snappy anymore," he teases, smiling at Sam.

Sam rolls her eyes at Tucker. "You wanna tell them?" she asks me first. "Your choice."

I smile a little, finding it kind of nice she's thinking of me first when it comes to what we talked about. "I told Sam about my being a Halfa. Or, how I used to be one."

"These guys mentioned something about that too," Danny adds, waiting for more. "What do you mean' used to'? You don't have your powers anymore"

"I lost my powers about three years ago in an, accident," I explain, looking for the right word. "But they're right. You taught me how to control my powers, when I had them."

"That's so cool," Tucker fans, shaking his head. "This is like some sort of time-lot-twist on tv or something."

"Only it's not," Shane reminds us. "The real problem here is that we're stuck here whether we like it or not. We don't know how we got here or why, and there's no telling when we're going to be able to go back." He is right... "Nett doesn't have his tech around," then he looks at me. "And you don't have your ghost connections around here anymore. Plus we have no idea how being here is going to affect the future, either."

There's an ominous silence around the table as we take in Shane's speech. Reality is, we're here, and we can't go back. And if someone really is behind this, we don't have the resources to do something about it.

"Then we'll help you," Danny offers without a hesitant tone in his voice. "I know it hasn't been long since we've met but, I know we all share one thing in common, and it's that we fight ghosts." Danny smiles assuring at me. "Besides, if I was willing to become any sort of teacher then you must've been someone worth teaching then."

I can't help but smile back, hearing Danny. I can't cry, so instead I give him a huge nod of gratitude as I clasp my hands underneath the table. "Thank you, Danny. That really means a lot to me."

"And if it's tech you need then I'm your man," Tucker boasts proudly. "We may not be as up to date as two-thousand-whatever year you guys come from, but I think we can cut it pretty close."

Sam gives us her half smile. "Hey, if these two bozos are in then I'm in too. By what it sounds like, you guys seem to know a thing or two about ghosts. And for the time being what with ghosts attacking on every corner, we could use the expertise."

"Wow," Nett smiles, unusually quiet right now. "You guys are alright."

Sam takes off her school bag to take out a book, which she begins to flip through. By the look of the cover, I can tell it's the Fenton Journal. A brand-new looking notebook. When she finds what she's looking for, she places the book on the table and shows it to us. "This is Clockwork, right?"

Shane, Nett, and I lean over together to peer into the book with them. Inside there's a drawing of a special symbol - the same symbol that belongs on Clockwork's infamous medallions. "It is Clockwork," I say in astonishment. It's a little paradoxical to me, seeing this book in its beginning stages. To think one day it would become the foundation to our ghost hunting in the future.

Sam smiles, glad to know she found the right thing. "I've been recording notes on our ghost hunting. I knew it'd come in handy."

"Can't we just go to Clockwork to fix this?" Shane asks Danny.

"I've never really met the guy, to be honest," Danny admits, scratching his neck. "Sam's just doing all this research in her own spare time. To be honest I'm still new to this ghost-thing, and so far every ghost I meet is out to get me."

"Like the Box Ghost," Tucker says with an elbow on the table. By the look on his face I can tell even in the past the Box Ghost is as relentlessly persistent as ever.

"If you knew any ghosts back home, they probably aren't willing to help you out any time soon," Danny says. He's got a point.

"Then I guess we're stuck here until we can figure things out on our own," Nett surmises.

"Wait a sec," I call, looking to the corner of the book. For the time being, Sam's book must be park scrapbook, because there's a photo taped in the top corner. It's an Instant Picture of Sam with her arms around Tucker and Danny, with a coffee stain at the bottom corner. "I have that picture."

"You do?" I hear various voices speak up, and I start feeling my pants and shirt pockets for it. Traveling through time, even if we're three years younger again with miraculously smaller fitting clothes, I'm praying I still have that picture on me somewhere. Back home, I was going through the old Fenton Journal for some nostalgia until I found the same photo. I meant to show it to mom today but, I guess it never happened. "Here," I find.

I pull it out of my pants pocket, and it's a little bent on the corners and somewhat yellowed from age, but it's the same picture. All six of us lean in over the table's book as I place my picture next to Sam's, and despite the appearance of the physical photo, they're exactly the same.

"Woah," Tucker says.

"They're the exact same picture down to the coffee stain," Danny notices.

"I love how you have to so conveniently," Nett mentions, to which I shrug innocently. Like I was supposed to know having this picture would be so crucial today.

"Guess this only proves you guys really are from the future," Sam says, still taking this all in. "You know... this kind of gives me an idea."

While my friends and I look up, I can see Danny and Tucker with this expressions of unease. "What idea," Tucker narrows.

"Wendy used to have ghost powers just like Danny," Sam brings up. I blink my eyes twice. "Why don't you teach Danny a thing or two on how to control them?"

Shane's eyes widen as Nett's face contorts. Meanwhile mine is full of either horror or plain surprise. "M-Me?"

"Yeah why not?" Danny agrees, totally on board. "We help you find a way to go back home, meanwhile you can show me a thing or two about how to use these powers," he proposes, holding up his hands in reference to his earlier ecto beams. "Your little hint before during the fight with Skulker really helped us out."

"I-I don't know," I say unsure, but I feel Nett elbow my side.

"Come on, Wen," Nett tries to persuade. Now he's on their side? "It can be kinda cool, right silent-guy?" Nett says, looking over to Shane.

He rolls his eyes at the nick-name. "We've already done enough damage here. Can't hurt," he shrugs. Both of them are against me?

"Okay okay okay hold on," I say, feeling kind of overwhelmed for some reason. As great an opportunity this sounds, I can't help but feel a little iffy about it. "What part of 'I don't have powers anymore' does no one understand? My days of dealing with ghosts are over, guys."

"Can't she just get her powers again the same way Danny got his?" Tucker suggests. I can feel Shane and Nett jump a little at that statement.

"I already said that to her," Sam explains, motioning to me. "She won't do it."

"Wait what are we talking about?" Shane asks.

Danny sits back, unsure of how to start. "Look, I got my powers because I was messing with my parents' portal. Something happened and the portal turned on while I was inside and, the next thing I knew I was a ghost."

"Mid Ecto-plasmic alteration of the genetic codes of DNA," Nett realizes in some self-scientific language only he can understand. "It's perfect."

"Yeah..." Sam says warily, arching her eyebrow. "But she won't do it."

"Why not?" Danny asks me.

"It's just-" Yeah Wendy why not? "It's just not me right now, okay?" I say, stressing out over this sudden topic of turning my whole life around. "There was a time and a place for being a ghost and, I've gotten over it, okay? I've finally gotten used to the idea that I'm not some special super-human anymore. " The silence that follows is a little uneasy, full of tension. My fault I guess. "Look I'll teach Danny what I know but, I'm not changing myself again."

Danny exhales, our table still quiet. "Well we won't force you. But, if you're willing to help me then that's all I can ask for."

"In the meantime," Tucker grins, sitting back, "now that all the suspicious stuff is out of the way I think it's safe to say this is soooooo awesome."

"Tucker," Sam frowns.

"Come on guys seriously? We're like two months into high school and we're already having adventures kids could only dream of." Tucker's enthusiasm reminds me of ours before. "Now to add to it we've found three kids from the future. How cool does that sound?"

"Heh, that does sound pretty cool," Nett laughs. Shane and I kick him under the table. He's definitely his father's son.

"Besides," Tucker says, looking at the two identical pictures again. "In a way you're kind of like the next generation of ghost-hunters after us. We've got to stick together."

I take a deep breath then exhale, looking at everyone around me. Our three caretakers are willing to keep us around, and Shane and Nett appear to be willing to follow whatever decision I make. It's a weird feeling, being in 'adventure-mode' again, where I'm once again calling shots. I never realized until after I lost my powers how much of a super-heroine I was, making huge rash decisions that over the years I'd stopped making. Instead I've been following and abiding by the rules of adulthood and society.

In a way, I feel like the adult.

"Alright," Danny concludes, holding his hand out to me, from one 'generation' to another. "So, we're all friends now?"

It's our second handshake, this one making official an agreement far beyond a simple truce. I'll be Danny's teacher (somehow) and they'll be helping us return to our time. It sounds alright, so why does it feel so much more complicated and scary. Instead, I do what I haven't done in forever and follow my gut, throwing away all adult-like hesitancy over my shoulder and I shake his hand. "Friends."

"Friends," Tucker adds, placing his palm over our handshake.

"Friends," Shane adds, smiling now even.

"Ooh ooo ooh group-in!" Nett grins, placing his hand over Tucker's.

All of us start looking to Sam, has this stoic look on her face. In a way she's kind of the Shane of their group I think. The solid one. Finally she gives in and places her hand in with a simple smile. "Friends."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

That night, Sam told me she'll lending me some of her night-clothes to borrow after she's done showering. Meanwhile I'm in my guest room across her's, waiting as passing time. It's still kind of weird, knowing how rich Mom was yet how down to earth she is, too. Still, I can't help but feel uneasy about all this 'fun and excitement'. Why can't I just enjoy it?

All of a sudden I hear a knock-knock and I jump. I can see Shane's outline outside the window on the fire escape, and I hurry to open it. "Shane what are you doing here?"

"Danny and Nett are nerding over space ships together - got bored and thought I'd chill here for a bit," he says coolly. I give him a 'really?' look, and he laughs a little "Okay so, I came to check up on you and your gloomy self. You on your 'time-of-month' or something?" he asks with quotation marks.

_This guy_. "I swear I'll push you off the window sill," I frown, arms crossed and totally serious.

Shane sighs, swinging his legs over the window sill. "Okay, what's up?"

"Nothing."

Shane wears his face well. "You know what I'm talking about."

"If this is about me turning down getting my powers back then I don't want to talk about it again."

"Wendy it's all you'd _be_ talking about before. Weren't you the one who was always wishing for adventure again? And here you have it on a silver platter and you're just turning it away."

"What do you want me to do it?"

"Not necessarily me. It's up to you - it's just you seem pretty rash about saying no." I deny answering, turning away stubbornly. "Don't you think it'd be easier teaching Danny if you had them? Or maybe if someone really did send us back in time then you should have some kind of way of fighting."

"Shane, we're eighteen now," I remind him. "We may not look like it right now but we're going to graduate. We're going to college. I've had my days wishing I was a super-kid again but I have to stop sometime, okay?" I let out a silent breath, shaking my head. "Besides, you and Nett were always telling me that I had to stop living in the past - living with this idea ghosts are still around somewhere. Ghosts don't exist anymore in our world, Shane. We shut all the portals after Danny moved on and that was the end of it."

"But don't you miss it?" Shane asks, leaning on the side of the window.

I can't deny that I do. "Of course," I admit. "But, I feel like if I get my powers back, I won't be able to live without them anymore, you know?" I shrug my shoulders. "I've... finally gotten through my head that I have to grow up, okay? I've... moved on, and I'm past this ghost stuff."

"Such a sudden change of heart," Shane points out. "You said you saw something in FentonWorks that night, and you looked so excited."

"I was paranoid," I correct. "Whether I really saw something or not I can't tell anymore. But we're here. And having powers or having fun isn't going to get us back home, Shane." I glance down at my feet. I'm a little shorter now as 14 than I was 18. "I don't want to keep reliving some teenage-fantasy of having super-powers, even... even if it was real."

Shane frowns, and I can tell he isn't content with my reasoning. "Suit yourself," he says, jumping off the window and landing on my floor. He comes over and grabs my shoulders so I can look at him. "I know we all have to grow up, and I know it's coming pretty soon pretty fast. That's what senior year's all about. But, in the meantime we're here. Now. Nett and I are laying back so you should, too. It's the least you should do before you say goodbye to everything."

Hearing that last comment doesn't make me feel any better. If anything it only confirms that there _will_ be a goodbye to this amazing fairy tale of a life. Even a goodbye to Shane.

He even gives me some form of an assuring smile that usually I give him. "If we're going to graduate and grow up, might as well go out with a bang like we used to."

"Yeah," I sigh out, leaving it at that so we can drop this ghost powers issue. Shane seems okay with my settlement, and gives me a quick shy kiss on the cheek before he lets go of my shoulders. For some reason my whole head feels warm and my legs lighter. Shane back away rather quickly so I got to see his immediate shy reaction too.

"Sorry," Shane apologizes with a nervous laugh. "Feels a lot different kissing you when we look like this."

"Feels nostalgic doesn't it," I smile, holding my cheek. It all reminds me of how at 14, we slowly fell for each other like this.

"I-I uh, better go before Sam sees me in here." Shane tosses one leg over the window and onto the fire escape, but before he can jump out, I walk over and give him a huge hug, catching him off guard.

"Thanks for coming," I smile, inhaling his familiar scent. "You always know when I need a kick in the ass."

"Definitely," Shane laughs, as I begin to part the hug. Our faces are close enough and I steal the moment to give him a quick kiss on the lips too. It's even more nerve-wrecking but, I'm glad I did it. We smile shyly at one another until Shane accidentally trips out of the window, falling onto the fire escape outside. I run over to check if he's okay, and he quickly makes his way down the black ladder to cover it up.

Shaking my head I shut the window, just in time for me to barely hear the door creak open. "So you two _are_ together," I hear Sam say, causing me to gasp half way closing the window. Sam stands by the edge of the door with pajamas in hand and a towel over her head. "You guys are so mushy I think I'm gonna hurl."

"Sorry," I apologize, gratefully taking the clothes from her. "I didn't know he was coming."

"It's cool. You looked like you needed some comforting," Sam shrugs, looking around the guest room. "Danny used to do that too when we were little. He'd climb my fire escape  
when this was my room, and we'd play together."

"That's so sweet," I smile. So Mom and Dad knew each other for that long, too.

"Yup..." Sam sighs, remembering days. "So you're really eighteen, you three?"

Makes me wonder how longer she was standing out there eavesdropping. "Yeah. I'm guessing it must've happened when we got sent back here. Don't know why, but, here we are thee years younger."

"That's so crazy," Sam laughs, shaking her head. "Your Romeo does have a point, though."

Hope my face isn't still red. "Does he?"

"If you guys are stuck here might as well make the most of it." Sam throws herself onto my made-bed and stretches her arms and legs out. She looks so comfortable. "Right?"

Mom used to tell me cheery things like that, as gloomy and gothic as her style was, and is. "Yeah." I sit by her on my temporary bed, looking out the night sky. I have to admit, I do miss flying through the air, as horrifying as it used to be. Growing up is even scarier now that I think about it. "We'll see how things go from here."

* * *

**PREVIEW:**

_**"Alright, how about you go ghost and show me what you can do first?" I ask Danny, assuming a mentoring persona.**_

_**x-x-x**_

_**Sam frowns. "What's up?"**_

_**"Nothing," Shane replies flatly. "I'm just, getting a vibe that maybe... maybe it's time Wendy and I, took a break is all."**_

_**Sam's face breaks, into a face of disapproval and surprise. "What?"**_

_**x-x-x**_

_**"It's... Plasmius!"**_

_**"Plasmius?" Tucker repeats. "The Wisconsin loser who has the hots for Danny's mom?"**_

_**Nett stands in the background, his confused mind wandering to all different questions. "...Sorry who?"**_

_**x-x-x**_

_**"I'm sorry Wendy."**_


	4. Estranged Pt1

_"Haha! Come on Shane hurry up!" 18-year old me yells as I run through the trees. I turn back a moment, to make sure that I'm still being followed._

_Shane pants as he tries to catch his breath by a stump. "Wendy where're we going?" We're in the woods-part of the park, the sea of trees where Shane and I used to play as kids. _

_"Just keep up and you'll find out," I smile before disappearing behind another tree._

_As tired as Shane is, he smiles and shakes his head. "Since when is she ever this enthusiastic about anything?" Shane walks forward to keep up with me, only to find he's really lost me. "Wendy?" I call. No response. "Come on I hate this whole you-can-see-me and I-can't-see-you thing."_

_Weirdly enough the air around the trees grow darker and darker, and the trees start to disappear behind the darkness as well until there's one bright tall tree left. Shane walks towards it and looks behind, only to see a faint image._

_It's 14-year old me, hand-in-hand with 14-year old boy named Alex Foley. It's like a flashback, the two of them as a couple, to a time where Shane was at his most conflicting of minds. Shane turns around and he's met with another image of the present. He sees himself and me, arm in arm, only for it to start fading away. _

_"Wendy wait!" Shane calls out, running to our image, only for it to fade into sand and wind. through his fingers. "What the hell…?"_

_A girl's giggle is enough to make me spin back around and see a third image. Only it's of me and this blond guy Shane don't even know. He sees them talking casually, and for some reason Shane feels a small pang in his chest he can't register. The image fades into a different one: of me and the same guy sitting together on what appears to be a date. Then the blonde puts his arm around me, and I lay my head to sleep on his shoulder._

_"Wendy?" Shane asks, not understanding what he was seeing. Where he was right now._

_Just when he thinks it can't get any worse, he see the blond and me as older people. Adults graduating college together. Shortly after the image turns into one of marriage in a quaint church. The sound of applause rings as they kiss, and adult-Shane's in the audience, clapping to a bittersweet sight._

"Ahh!" Shane gasps, sitting up. He finds himself in the Fenton's Room, with Nett asleep in a nearby mattress and Danny in his own bed, drooling. "Just a dream..." Shane breathes out, holding a hand to his head. It wasn't like him to have such anxiety-driving dreams, but this one was just crazy. As he falls back to his pillow, Shane tries to go back to sleep, only for his eyes to open back wide up. "We're in 2007."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

It's the first night sleeping in the year 2007. So when I wake up, it's a little hard to remember yesterday's events. Was it a dream? Am I at Crissy's place sleeping over and that's why I'm not in my room? It hits me when my legs automatically find their way to this walk-in bathroom.

My first instinct is to wash cold water over my face to wake me up and smooth out my short hair from its bed-head formation. But as my blurry morning vision cleared and sunk down the sink hole with the cold water, I then notice my distinctly younger reflection in the mirror and- "AHHH!"

"Wendy?" My door bursts open with Sam looking in. She notices my empty bed then the light inside the bathroom from the open door. She rushes to see what happened and sees me, my bottom stuck in the bathtub and some toiletries scattered along the floor. I had tripped backwards and, here I was. "Are you okay?" Sam asks, bewildered and wide awake.

Sore, I blow a little hair out of my face, and try not to look to horrified at my mother's younger, same-age appearance. "... Yeah," I say swiftly, taking everything in all over again, only in three seconds.

Good God it so wasn't a dream.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Meanwhile back at Fentonworks...

"So your parents are at work..." Nett tries to accept. He, Shane, and Danny were walking down the stairs to the kitchen. "... What the heck do they do?"

"Something ghost-related," Danny shrugs, not quite knowing himself. "All that matters is that they're not down in the lab." The boys settled yesterday night that they would be doing the training in the lab downstairs. Straight into the kitchen, they stop suddenly seeing Jazz already there. "Oh. H-Hey Jazz good morning," Danny snaps chipperly.

Jazz arches her eyebrow. "Morning." She eyes each of the boys one eye one, as if they'd done something wrong. "Okay this is creeping me out. Danny I'm going to the library today. You babysit okay?"

"We don't need babysitting," Nett defends as Jazz walks past them, but she doesn't say a word as she makes her way out of the house. "Wow she's... she's uh..."

"Kind of a spazz?" Shane finishes.

"W-What _no_! No no no I mean to say eh um-"

"No she's a spazz," Danny affirms with a straight face.

"Knock knock! Look who I brought!" Tucker greets, running into the kitchen. Sam and I were right behind him. From what I'm getting, Tucker is definitely a morning person, whereas Sam is not. "Jazz let us in. She okay she looked kinda spaced."

"Don't ask," Danny finishes, getting some juice boxes from the fridge. He tosses one to each of us. "You guys eat breakfast?"

"Tofu-Pancakes," Sam and I respond together, her a little more enthralled than me. If one thing hasn't changed it's Mom's diet. And me having to go along with it.

Danny blinks. "... So some toast then?"

"Yes please," I smile, taking a seat at the table. I notice Shane nearby, sitting too and staring off into space. I arch my eyebrow and poke his shoulder. Mm. No response. "Hello? Earth to Shane?" I call, waving my hand in front of his face.

"Mm?" he replies cooly. "Oh sorry."

"Sleep okay?" I ask with a sympathetic smile. "Don't worry. I had a rude awakening, too. I totally forgot where we were and just freaked out when I saw myself in the bathroom."

As distraught as Shane still looked, my story sparked a half smile and a controlled chuckle from him. "Figures. But I'm fine. Just had a rude awakening too, that's all."

"Was it Nett?" I whisper, glancing to our Foley scarfing down cereal Sam poured for him and Tucker. The two appear to be having an eating contest, and slightly scaring my mother.

"Actually," Shane starts out, sitting up. "Wendy you think you and I can ta-"

"So what're we doing today guys?" Danny asks, walking up to the table. "We got the lab all to ourselves."

Nett shrugs from where he is. Totally not being asked the question but he replies anyway. "Beats me. Wendy's the teach. Hey Teach what're we doing?"

I can't help but just _glare_ are Nett, reminding me that I have to be a teacher this morning. I don't mind teaching Danny, it's just, I dunno. Part of me just really doesn't want to go back to ghost business. "Why don't we go downstairs and wing it from there huh?"

"I'm down with that," Sam shrugs.

After a short breakfast, together we walk to the space in the wall that at first I thought were be obscured by, well, _a wall_. Instead it's an open downward staircase that Sam, Danny, and Tucker walk down casually, and it's so brightly lit. I'll remember before when we'd go down these stairs, there were no lights in the living room or the kitchen, and it'd lead to a pitch black stairwell and into a huge dark room where we'd have to find the light switch. Here it's... just another part of the house.

Then if the stairwell was one thing, the three of us seeing the lab was definitely something else. "Dude," Nett gapes, and we just stop.

The lab, is just soo... alive. No rust anywhere. No dust or cobwebs everything. Everything or rather anything here looks new. No missing tiles or broken beakers. And major pieces of furniture like tables and major machines are just where they were. My mind instinctively fades back and forth between our lab and this one, like a flashback. Or flashforth... My mind's shutting up now.

Danny stops, realizing we have. "You guys okay?"

"Y-Yeah we're fine," Shane answers for us, catching himself, as do I. "We're just-"

"Wow," Nett finishes, not having snapped out of it yet. I slap him on the back of the head, causing his glasses to fall forward on his nose.

"So uh, how does this training session work?" Tucker asks curiously.

"Yeah. What did future-me used to do when he'd train you?" Danny asks, grinning with excitement. "Should we try this the same way?"

At that moment the three of us over here have our own unique facial reactions. Nett looked ill. Shane's eyebrow arched up as his frown lowered. I looked somewhat (totally) disturbed. "No," all of us respond together without having a second thought.

Sam, Danny, and Tucker look rather curious about our instant opposition to the simple question. But come on - he would NOT want the same training method I had. Life endangering ghost tests? Sending my own super powered buddies after my pupil to help 'build character'? (Plus I don't even have ally ghosts to send after Danny anyway)

"_Hey_..." Nett whispers to me very quietly, looking around first. "_Maybe you should try a different training method_-"

"I know!" I snap, unsure of how to go about this. Maybe that's what's getting to me. Instead, I take a deep breath first. "Alright, how about you go ghost and show me what you can do first?"

"Sounds good to me," Danny grins, jumping up and going ghost. Watching him do so makes me nostalgic, but I put my mind to the back of my head.

Meanwhile Shane and Nett walk over to the sidelines as they used to when they'd watch me train, only they're alongside Sam and Nett now. In the distance they watch Danny and I converse, before Danny starts demonstrating what he knows.

"So," Tucker starts out, suddenly in front of Nett. "Feel like having a tour of the 2000's lab?"

Nett's face brightens, and the two boys run off to go inspect the lab's gadgets together - whereas Sam and Shane watch on. "That was quick," Shane notions.

Sam almost laughs before turning to the boy. "I'm guessing your Nett's our version of our Foley?"

"You have no idea," Shane says, resisting the urge to laugh at the double meaning. He then turns his attention towards our training session, watching me try to be a mentor. While watching Danny and me, Shane's attention drifts towards the closed yet fully operational Ghost Portal against the wall. Curiosity can only fly.

"Looks cool doesn't it," Sam catches, causing Shane to flinch away his gaze.

"Huh?"

"The Ghost Portal?" Sam crosses her arms and looks at it, too. "That's the thing that got us all into the mess in the first place, not that we regret it or anything."

"What happened?" Shane asks.

Sam looks up, recalling the day. "Tucker, Danny and I were hanging out around down in the labs one day over the summer. Danny's parents just built the portal, only it wasn't operational yet."

"The parents couldn't find the right part or something?"

"Try the right button. Apparently they put the 'ON' switch _inside_ the portal walls, only we didn't know, and apparently neither did they." Sam smiles. "I had this stupid idea to mess with it and pursuade Danny to go inside. So he put on a suit, walked in, accidentally switched the portal on and bam - Portal glows green and when Danny comes out, he's black and white."

"He became part ghost..." Shane realizes, looking at Danny now.

"So what about your girlfriend?" Sam asks. "How'd she get her powers?"

After all these years Shane still can't surprises even the slightest color tint on his face at the mention of 'girlfriend'. "She's not-" Shane cuts himself off, remembering who and where he was.

Sam looks at him strange. "She's _not_ your girlfriend?"

"She is," Shane answers, taking a breather first. "Sorry. It's just that back when I actually _was_ fourteen like this, it was always my first instinct to say she wasn't. And, well, now she is..."

Sam smiles, content with that. "That's sweet. How long'd it take for you two to get together? Couple months? Years?"

"How'd you guess?"

"I can read people," Sam smiles proudly, arms crossed and no hesitation in her claim. "Plus she really seems to like you."

"You can read that?" Shane asks in disbelief. In plain sight he can barely notice himself.

Sam scoffs. "Please. Anyone with eyes can see that. She talks to me about you sometimes." Shane blushes, and then frowns. "What's up?"

"Nothing," Shane replies flatly. But if he knew Ms. Manson from the future, there's no doubt her dotting personality would be the same here. "I'm just, getting a vibe that maybe... maybe it's time we, took a break is all."

"..." Sam remains silent, unsure of how to react to this sudden turn of news.

"It's not that I want to it's just," Shane pauses, watching me and Danny spar as he tries to think of words. "We're all going to college soon. The three of us. And, I feel like if I stay with Wendy then I'll just be holding her back."

Sam can't quite comprehend that. "How?"

"I don't know," Shane shrusg. "Wendy's an amazing friend. She's bound to attract some real good guys in college. And, I wouldn't want to be the person to hold her from that opportunity, that's all."

"That's a stupid reason," Sam reacts.

An inner click goes off in Shane's head, not exactly expecting that as a reaction. Then again, if Samantha Manson was any forward and blunt as her daughter, then this was it."What?"

"I know I'm not person with dating experience but, I just don't see why two people should break up over something like that," Sam reasons, arguing incredibly justifying, as if she's arguing a case in a trail. "If two people really like each other as much as they say they do then they should be able to get through anything, even college." Sam turns to Shane, a regretful frown on her face. "And by the looks of you, you must like her a lot."

"Mm." Shane continues to watch me at work, critiquing Danny. The dream he had last night of me with another future guy just seems to reply in his mind over and over. _Maybe that talk with her last night about getting over things is getting to me_.

Meanwhile with me and Danny, Danny's so far shown me that... He can barely fire anything ray-like, he always accidentally turns intangible, has trouble turning things invisible, can't do shields, and, well, nothing else yet.

"Ooh ooh ooh how do you do that ghost-duplication thing?" Danny asks with eagerness. He seems so happy about having a teacher - much more than I ever was. "I've always wanted to learn that. Do I ever learn how to do it in the future?"

"Well, I guess you do," I say, trying to recall that power or how Danny taught it. "Now that I think about it, you didn't really show me how to do it. I sort of learned on my own after you told me to try and it became an instinctive thing."

"Oh," Danny slumps. "I see."

Heh, Dad wasn't kidding when he said it took him forever to learn Duplication. I smile sympathetically. "But hey, at least you can fly straight. It took me months to learn how to even keep my place in the air." Danny smiles, too, feeling comforted. "Okay, let's deal with basics first I guess. Ecto-Rays."

"Alright."

I take a stance, and Danny automatically copies me like a mirror's reflection. As he does, I automatically flash back to Danny's lesson many years ago.

_"Now we'll be focusing on your ecto blasts," Danny begins to teach._

_"But I can already do those."_

_"Yeah, but only small ones. You want to be able to fire larger sources of energy at ghosts." He flies a few feet away. "Here, try and fire at me as practice."_

"You sure? I don't like the idea of trying to shoot you."

_"He's only comfortable with letting her shoot him because he knows she'll miss," Shane remarks quietly, causing small laughs amongst him and Nett. _

_"I heard that!" I bark_.

"Any time you want to fire ectoplasmic energy, you'll need to focus consciously every time," I say seriously. "It sounds tedious, but you'll get the hang of it in time. Your body and ghost energy will adapt to the action to the point it eventually becomes second nature. By that point long period of focus will merely turn into a second of thought."

"You really know what you're doing."

"I learned from the best." That compliments earns another smile from Danny, and he begins to practice focusing and meditating mentally, just as I instruct him.

Along the hour of training, I demonstrate old martial arts I try to make Danny copy, all while incorporating ecto-energy. Punches that fire. Jumps that boost your speed. Kicks that shoot flames. Okay so maybe he isn't as... cool as his future self. Maybe a bit more clumsy... and nerdy... and clumsy. I feel like I make it look easy, even without powers, but I notice Danny struggle. Nonetheless he remains persistent.

"Oh man, it's the Fenton Fisher," Nett gawks. "And the original Ghost Gauntlets. And the original Ecto Skeleton! Even the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick!"

"Wow, if you know what the Anti-Creep Stick is then you really know your stuff," Tucker says, watching Nett name remotely everything in the lab.

"Sort of forced myself to learn," Nett reminisces. "When Wendy and Shane would be in trouble, I'd have to do something and well, computers was the only thing I was good at at the time, so I had to make do with that."

Tucker's eye slight up. "Someone who gets it!" Tucker exclaims, grasping Nett into a tight hug. Nett blinks his eyes, glasses crooked. "Dude, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!"

Nett coughs, still trapped in the hug. "You don't get out much do you."

Suddenly a siren starts to go off, from the top of the ghost portal. Everyone stops what they're doing and turns to the portal. "Siren. Siren's glowing what's the siren for?" I ask urgently. I don't remember that ever being a lab feature.

"Ghost!" Danny warns as the doors slide open, revealing the beautiful neon green circling light from inside. It has me almost in a trance until three ghosts fly out - those three bird vultures. Those guys? "Get behind me," Danny says, stepping in front with an extended arm.

"There's the girl!" one of the birds yell, facing Sam. Her eyes widen as all three birds look to her and Shane. I feel my heart beat with fear. Suddenly everyone's on end.

"Now what do these bird-brains want?" Sam panics, cornered by the table.

"I dunno," Shane says, next to her at the moment. He looks to me first and connects suddenly that he's been tasked with protecting my mom. "But it can't be good."

In seconds the lab becomes a battle royalle with Sam as the target. Danny takes out two birds while Shane pushes Sam out of the way. Tucker throws Shane a ghost weapon as he uses that to defend himself and Sam.

"Wendy!" Nett shouts, tossing me a metal rod from the floor.

Running I jump and catch it, running over to help Danny. I may not have ghost powers anymore but that doesn't mean I can't help fight. Danny's beaten one and has it flying to the wall. Another one I clock with a swish of the rod, me landing back to back against Danny. "Danny you alright?" I ask, out of breath.

"Yeah-DUCK!" With a swift duck Danny shots a small ecto energy ball at a bird behind me. And as Danny jumps for a split second, I swing my rod across the floor to throw the bird across the lab.

"AAAHH!" Tucker and Nett scream as a third bird closes in on them, only for the bird Danny and I just hit to fly into theirs, knocking both out of the way. The fight continues with us all trying to keep the ghosts away from Sam. At one point I see one knock Shane aside and he crashes into some beakers near the lab tables.

"Shane!" I don't need a second thought to run to him, all while Danny flies to Sam to protect her.

"Who sent you!" Danny orders. "What do you want with Sam!"

"We're only following orders, kid, now hand her over." The three birds corner in on Danny and Sam, while Danny tries to generate another ecto-beam. Only for some reason I see him struggling. It's not working. _Oh man..._ "W-Wendy! Wendy I'm not working!" Why do I feel like I've said that too at one point? "Focus focus focus." Danny hand merely flickers a green light, like a broken light bulb, and I feel a sudden horrific pang run through me.

"This isn't good," Shane winces, me helping him sit up. "What are they after Sam for anyway?"

"I don't know," I panic, looking around for any last minute plan.

In the midst of my anxiety, I almost overlook Nett's wildest last resort idea. I have to do a double take at the ridiculous sight. "What the..."

He stands near the entrance of the lab, holding some form of of projectile machine. "Please work...!" Nett squeaks, pressing a button. Out of this giant Fenton device, it shoots two of the Ghost Gauntlets, sending them flying towards the birds. The force of the metal gloves are enough to throw all three birds towards the other wall of the room, where Tucker reopens the ghost portal just in time to send them, and the Gauntlets, back into the Ghost Zone. With them gone, Tucker shuts the portal immediately after, and then the roof-high tension... is gone.

All of us are standing where we are, frozen and out of breath and completely dumbfounded at what just happened. I know we used to have sudden ghost attacks in our days but, this was just completely random. "What just happened?" Sam demands.

"They said they were looking for you. What'd you do?" Tucker recalls as he walks over.

"I didn't do anything!" Sam defends, stepping out from behind Danny. "And they weren't looking for me they were looking for 'a girl'. We all know how bad those geezers are at assassinating and finding their targets!"

"Maybe they were looking for me," I pick up, suddenly very guilty for putting everyone in danger. As sudden an assumption it sounded, it sounded pretty realistic. Shane places a hand over my shoulder as I see Sam and Tucker's feud die down.

"Hold on we don't know anything yet," Danny defends, turning back into his human form. "If anything I know it's that they must've been sent by someone. Those three aren't smart enough to pull a heist all their own."

"Well who sent them then?" Tucker asks. "Could've been anyone."

"Anyone with a target," Nett weighs in. "Female one anyway."

"Whoever they are," Shane begins, looking from Sam to me. "They were definitely looking for one of you two. Only why?"

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Shortly after the incident in the lab, all of us went back upstairs to cool off and calm down. I had broken down into a guilty wreck, so Danny offered me his room where Nett and Shane could talk me down. Sam, Danny, and Tucker were meanwhile down in the living room, trying to sort out this mystery.

"Geez," Tucker says. "Girl sure knows how to feel the blame."

"This isn't funny Tuck she thinks this whole thing's her fault."

"Well lots of other attacks end up your fault but you never feel this bad," Tucker points out.

Danny's expresion remains stagnant. "Thanks, Tuck."

Meanwhile upstairs, I'm sitting on Danny's bed next to Nett, as Shane stands next to the window nearby. "Guys, what the hell are we doing? Thinking we could get by just by hanging out with Danny? We don't even know how this will affect the time stream or us or our parents back home and-"

"I think we've already passed that line, Wen," Nett says, only to receive a glare from Shane. Nett thinks quickly. "Stop being so hard on yourself. We don't know anything yet about who sent those birds or who they were really after."

"It doesn't matter who they were after. My point is I was training Danny and, something happened and I put him and Sam in danger because of it." The image of Danny's horror-stricken face when his ecto beams wouldn't work is plastered in my mind. This foreign feeling of overprotectiveness and guilt just overcame me there, and I'll never forget that feeling.

"Oh now that totally couldn't have been your fault," Nett opposes. "If Danny ends up in a situation where he can't control his powers yet then it's not your fault."

"But it could be," I say, looking down. He believes in me to be his mentor for all this. How can I compare to him who taught _me_? "I just don't think I can take the guilt of knowing I was a bad teacher, and the one to blame if anything bad ever happened to him."

"Look, Wendy," Shane says, coming up on my other side. "I know how you tend to go overboard with the whole self-guilt thing, and I know you know it, too. But beating yourself up like this isn't going to make you feel any better."

"Yeah, but it'll remind me that I still have to find a way to get us back home somehow," I remind.

"You mean _we_ still have to find a way," Nett corrects with an arm around me. "Shane and I aren't the same spineless teenage boys we used to be; relying on you all the time for the big stuff. You can count on us now, too, okay? We're all gonna get ourselves out of here. Together."

"As corny as Foley sounds he's right," Shane nods.

Aw. Horomes make me want to cry. "Thanks guys," I smile quietly.

"We're gonna go down back to the others. Feeling well enough to come with?" Nett asks, standing up.

"No I think I'll just stay here a bit longer," I say, wiping my eyes with my wrist. Nett doesn't say anything more and he makes his way to the door.

Shane's on his tail, but stops before he can pass me, and he bends over close to the side of my face. "You sure you're okay?" he asks one more time, reading past me.

Come on Shane. Nett just ended with a cheesy uplifting pep-talk. Can't I leave it at that for now? "Later," I let out quietly, admitting I wasn't totally okay but I didn't want to continue the conversation here at FentonWorks. Shane keeps his same doubting look, but leaves me be. Just before he turns around to leave, I suddenly throw my arms around him in a last-minute hug. Whether out of gratitude for the talk or just for comfort. Nonetheless he hugs me back and smiles once more before he follows Nett out and closes the door, leaving me to my lonesome. I groan to myself and lay back.

Danny, Sam, and Tucker are conversing amongst themselves in the living room when they hear footsteps and see Nett and Shane coming down the stairs. "So how is she?" Sam asks.

"Wendy-ish," Nett replies. "Don't worry she'll be fine eventually. She gets pretty hard on herself sometimes so this is fine."

"Maybe I should talk to her," Danny offers, standing up from his seat. "Can I?"

Shane and Nett are left standing there, unsure of what the right answer was. "Go ahead," Shane shrugs, thinking it couldn't hurt. So as Shane and Nett step aside for the Fenton, they take his seat around the coffee table. "So what were you guys talking about down here?"

"We were narrowing down possible suspects for who could've sent the ghost vultures," Sam eplies, sitting back with her legs up on the table. "And so far-"

"-it's going nowhere," Tucker finishes off, holding up a practically full list of names on a piece of paper.

Shane takes the sheet as he and Nett read off it. Nett adjusts his glasses and closes in on it. "Ember. Skukler. Ttechnus. Poindexter. YoungBlood. Spectra. Klemper. The Box Ghost- What is this a ghost hunter's shopping list?"

"It's a list of all the ghosts that have hired the Vultures in the past to fetch something for them," Tucker replies pretty casually. "So this isn't the first time we've seen those three. They're almost as constant as the Box Ghost, so it's hard to figure out who sent them this time." Shane turns the list over, only to find more names. "You can see our predicament."

"Well this totally narrows it down," Shane sighs with his trademark sarcasm. "So we really have no leads?"

"No names. No motives," Sam narrows down as she leans forward. "But we did try speculating why they'd want me or Wendy. Me, well, I'm Danny's friend so maybe as bait for him? That was our guess."

"As for Wendy," Tucker states. "I'm just as lost as Danny is."

"You think someone knows where we're from?" Nett asks.

"It wouldn't matter, would it?" Shane asks. "I mean, Wendy doesn't have any powers so what use would she be to a ghost in the Ghost Zone?"

As the four teens conspire in the living room, Danny finds himself knocking upstairs on his own bedroom door. "Um, h-hello? It's me, Danny. Can I come in?"

"Y-Yeah," I stammer, rubbing my eye a quick second before he walks in. "Are you okay?"

"I think I should be asking you that question," he smiles, walking over and sitting next to me. Leave it to Danny to keep a smile on his face after all this. Even before when he was my mentor he'd always maintain this happy attitude despite my whinish one. "So are you?"

"I'm fine," I sigh out, keeping emotions under control. _No I'm not_. "I'm sorry Danny. I don't think I can keep up this whole teaching thing."

"But we were doing so well," Danny points out. "I finally know the magic behind those ecto-blasts thanks to you." I give him a half smile, but Danny isn't content with that. Danny tries to think for a moment before it hits him. "You were worried about when I couldn't get the attack out."

I look away out of stubbornness, not wanting to talk about it.

"Can't expect me to know everything after one training session, you know."

"But _I_ could when you were my teacher," I mention, saying something I probably shouldn't have. Too late now, though. Danny's hooked. My heart feels for the father I've lost, resting somewhere in the afterlife now. It feels so surreal seeing him right here next to me at the same time, as a kid. "When you were my mentor, all you have to do was tell me what it was and how it is and, as untalented a Halfa as I was I got it. It was all because of him. You."

"You're telling me there wasn't _one_ instance where your powers wouldn't work," Danny tries.

"Well yeah of course it happened but..." My voice trails off. "Mm... If I was ever in a situation I'd never tell Danny." I hug my arms, remembering. "He'd worry."

Danny sends me a sympathetic look. "Sounds like me," he starts. "Hey, I don't know how good I get at being a ghost in the future, but if anything never worked out for you, you had your friends to back you up when I couldn't, right?"

I can't count the times Nett and Shane had my back when my powers got out of hand. Like when I got stuck up in a tree and the baseball fence, Shane would climb all the way up to get me down. Or Nett and his crazy contraptions and last minute save-Wendy plans. I'll never forget when he crashed his father's cr through Aragon's castle in the Ghost Zone. The reminiscing brings a faint smile to my face. "They did." I look to Danny, who's wearing a hopeful expression. "Can I trust that Tucker and Sam will be there for you when I'm not around?"

"You can count on that," Danny assures. It wasn't a big talk we've just had, but I feel like a weight's been lifted off my shoulders. Even when I was a Halfa in training and didn't tell Danny everything (what girl tells their father everything?) he must've been worried sick a lot, and I bet he had to put his trust in Nett and Shane to look out for me when he couldn't even leave the lab. Now I need to do the same and trust Tucker and Sam to watch over Danny.

Danny and I walk downstairs together, expecting to see the others conversing still. Instead we find them all sanding around. Baseball mits and a Fenton Creep Stick on the table. "Guys?" Danny starts.

"I think I have an idea," Nett says, and I assume this is all this brilliant updoing. "It's another training exercise for Fenton here," he tells us, tossing a baseball up in the air.

Seeing the baseball reminds me how bad I am with this sport, and I take a stomach-churning gulp. "Dare I ask?"

"Danny's ecto beams are all in the wrist, right?" Nett says, imitating him by holding the baseball in-between both hands and out. "If we practice some catch then maybe that'll do something."

"Sounds fun," Danny grins. "You up for some catch, Wendy?"

"I think I'll pass," I say with a flat knowing face and a hand up. If anything hasn't definitely changed, it's my inhumanely horrible hand-eye-coordination.

I see Shane walking up to us, too. "Besides, I was meaning to ask if you wanted to walk around instead while Nett stays here." The offer surprises me, but Shane seems serious about it. "Come on. You could use the down time."

Danny nods. "Go ahead; explore. We'll just be here."

I'm a little worried spitting up again, but I take Shane up on his offer and nod. "Alright."

* * *

**PREVIEW:**

**All the kids jump out of the way and behind a nearby car on the curb, waiting for the smoke to clear. "O-Okay. What was that?" Nett panics.**

**"Hold on," Sam squints. "It's... Plasmius!"**

**x-x-x**

**"If my calculations are correct then the settings are exactly the same as when Danny got his powers." Tucker looks back at me for the go. "You ready?"**

**"Do I really have to answer," I say, shakey.**

**x-x-x**

**"Just, get out there. Be free and become this macho successful artist I can brag to my college friends about one day," I say, seeing it now. He'll be amazing. Have everything he wanted. Even some girl... "Staying in Amity Park won't do anything for you."**

**"You really think I should go?" Shane asks me, inwardly wishing I was doing otherwise. Begging him to stay. To say 'I'll wait for you'. But he can't ask that. Never. I nod, and that's all he needs. "Okay then," Shane finalizes. "If we ever get home, then I guess that's where I'm going."**


	5. Estranged Pt2

While Nett is playing catch with the old trio, Shane and I are wandering aimlessly around the old Amity Park, taking in the older sights and atmosphere. The way people dress, how much less cars there were. It was a sight all its own. I have to admit, this walk did get my mind off FentonWorks. "Thanks for getting me out of there, Shane," I say after who knows how long. We've been walking in silence this entire time. "I needed this."

"You looked stressed," he says, stating the obvious. I chuckle a little to myself at that understatement. "Was this all really about just Danny?"

"Part of it," I admit, thinking more. "Do you know how weird it feels? _Teaching_ Danny how to use ghost powers? It's so, backwards."

"Believe me I know. Just watching you try to instruct him looked so strange to me," Shane says.

"If anything, I know I'm definitely crossing 'teacher' of my majors list for college," I sigh out. "It feels too scary, having the fate of some kid's future in your hands."

"Theoreticaly speaking."

"Yes theoretically speaking," I say first. "But with Danny it's so literal. If I teach him something the wrong way or not enough, it could come back to bite him in the butt and it'll be because _I_ was a bad teacher." I shake my head. "I can't do that for a living."

"Still going in Undecided for college?"

I nod, a little unenthusiastically. "Yeah." Earlier in the year when Shane, Nett, and I were discussing majors for what we wanted to study after Capser High, the two of them already had their hearts set straight out for something. With Nett he wanted computers. Shane Art. Me? I had no idea what I wanted to study in college. And frankly I still don't. "I still can't figure out what I want to do with my life, Shane... And being here is nice. It's a nice break. I just, know it's inevitable that we'll be back home and, reality's gonna hit me like a brick."

"You worry about the future too much."

"And you don't worry enough," I tease back, poking him hard in the shoulder. "But you know exactly what you're going to do. You'll probably end up this successful artist or musician making millions in New York. All the girls will be unable to resist you."

"You make it sound like they don't already," he jokes, only for me to laugh as I have to roll my eyes. "And what about you?" he asks back, a little less jokingly. Shane thinks back to his dream, where he foresaw me marrying someone else. "Don't you think you'll be successful, too?"

"It's kind of difficult when you can't see what you're doing yet. It's scary, not knowing what you want," I admit, looking at my feet as we walk.

"Can you, see yourself getting married?" Shane throws out. Part of him wishes he hadn't but it's already there. "Maybe you wanna be a mom or something."

I scoff instead of laughing. "Me a mom? Oh my gosh. That's even worse than being a teacher. I can't."

"Really?"

"I can barely take 'theoretically speaking' having the fate of a child's future in my hands as a teacher. But a mom? I dunno, Shane. A mom's job is twice the work and twice the stress. I don't think I'd be able to hold that kind commitment for a kid knowing the simplest of screw ups on my part could ruin the kid forever," I explain honestly, wishing I could though. "I mean, I wanna travel. See the world. Have adventures even bigger than the ones we had Freshman year. If I have a kid and get married, it sounds mean but, I feel like it'll just bind me, you know?"

"Scared of marriage?" he requotes.

"Not scared," I deny. I refused to say so. "I just, don't think it's for me that's all."

"Well I can see it for you," Shane smiles, totally contradicting what I just said. I give him a curious look, and he has that face. "What? Who knows? You could change your mind one day in college. You're a cool person, Wendy. You're bound to attract some idiots, much less fall for one of them. The next thing you know, you'll be saying yes to the first guy on his knees with a ring."

As he says that, I kind of wish it could be Shane doing that. _What did I just say?_ "I-I don't think so. Dating's never really been my thing and, I don't think it'll be in college either."

"You're dating me, aren't you?"

"Y-Yeah but, that happened because," my face turns red. Shoot. Don't bush Wendy stop it. "Shut up," I mutter, inevitably red. Shane just laughs as me and looks back forward. "... What about you?" I ask quietly. "Can you see yourself getting married?"

Shane shrugs. "I dunno. If it comes up then it comes up I guess," he says, miraculously laid back about the topic. Guess he doesn't worry about the future as much as I do. _Wish I was a bit like him_. "I guess I sort of want to travel, have adventures too. But I'm pretty attached to Amity Park already."

"Really?" I ask. Personally, I kind of wish I could get out of Amity Park. But with my mom's income and my low pay job, it's not happening any time soon. "Why? Aren't you tired of it? We've been there practically our entire lives."

"That's just it," Shane says. He doesn't strike me as a sentimental person. That definitely used to be me, reminiscing back and forth with Nett a my tortured listener. "I like Casper High. I like the town and the places and the people. I don't think I'll be able to say goodbye as easily as you."

"But, didn't you get accepted to that art school all the way across the country?" I remember. "Don't tell me you're going to turn it down just because you wanna stay in Amity Park."

Again Shane shrugs care-freely. "I have until a little bit after graduation to make up my mind. But I might just stay around town, take up art in a local college or something."

"But there's so much opportunity in New York," I smile, imagining it. And at Amity Park, well, we're just Amity Park. Shane can't be his best here. _He can't be his best with me_. "I'm sure you'll change you mind eventually." This time he's giving me this accusing look. "What. If you can say I can change my mind about marriage then I have just as much right to accuse you of changing your mind about New York."

"That's fair," Shane smiles. We take a turn, and we're out in front of Capser High. It looks so similar. And yet, distinctly different, too. "And there she is."

"It feels just like yesterday we got through our last final exam," I sigh out, remembering. I hear bells in the distance. Whether it's a nearby church or the school, it reminds me of that marriage topic Shane and I were just discussing. "Hey Shane?"

"Mm?"

"Let's make a bet..." I say, my tone a little bittersweet. If I say this now, it won't mean anything, but it definitely means I'm surrendering something of myself forever. And there's no turning back. "Who's going to get married fist," I state, catching Shane's attention. But my stare stays fixated on Casper High. "Me or you." I gather the guts to look at Shane. His expression is plain to me, but I can see a bit of confusion, curiosity.

"A bet huh?" Shane finally responds, placing his hands in his pockets. It's been a while since we've had a bet together. Before we used to make them all the time, sitting under a tent made of blankets and chairs, with one tiny light source. "What's the penalty for the loser?"

I shrug. I've never been good at penalties or making them up. "Looser has to do whatever the winner says? I dunno," I say with a shrug. "Just kinda curious, I guess, about who'll end up marrying first once we all go to college." Shane and I remain silent, staring at Casper High, almost our third home apart from FentonWorks and our actual homes. But, now that I've said this, I've acknowledged the total possibility that... I really will have to let Shane go some day.

"You're on," Shane nods after a long moment of silence. Unknowns to me, Shane too is thinking the same. By accepting the bet, he's also acknowledged the fact he'll have to let me go, too.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"ACK!" Tucker falls to the ground after a fast curve ball from Sam. "Geez woman. What'd I do to you?"

"You said girls can't throw," Sam grins, tossing an extra ball up and down from her free hand. She blows her nails. "I think I nailed that pitch."

"I don't see why I have to play, too." Tucker stands, fixing his hat before he goes to toss the ball to Nett. "Yo Nett, why the heck are we doing this again?"

As Tucker tosses the ball, Nett jumps and catches the baseball in his glove. "For Danny this should help with his aim when he uses his ecto-blasts." Nett assumes a pitcher's stance to throw it to Danny. The four of them are on the streets outside Fentonworks. "If you can aim, you're a hundred steps ahead of Wendy believe me." Nett tosses, and Danny jumps high just barely catching in in his mit. "Plus I remember Wendy catching attacks from her enemies this way and throwing them back at them." Nett's smile drops. "Not that she'd aim right in the end, anyway. But I see potential in you Danny! Whooo!"

Danny removes his mit to shake his hand. "This is so killing my wrist. Are you sure I trained Wendy like this?"

Nett thinks back, trying to remember. "I think Wendy had to use real targets as practice instead - namely you."

Danny gulped, not believeing it. "I told Wendy to shoot me?"

"Eh don't worry about it. Her aim was so off her ecto beams didn't go a mile near you," Nett assures with total flat confidence. Before Danny can resume their game of catch, his ghost sense goes off, causing the Fenton to drop the ball. "Oh no."

"Danny?" Sam calls, wondering what happened. Soon enough the kids sense the temperature drop and the skies turn a strange color. The wind picks up along the apparently empty streets as a ghost flies in down from the skies. All the kids jump out of the way and behind a nearby car on the curb, waiting for the smoke to clear.

"O-Okay. What was that?" Nett panics.

"Hold on," Sam takes out a pair of binoculars (?) and tries to see through the smoke. Danny and Tucker are awaiting a name. "It's... Plasmius!"

"Plasmius?" Tucker repeats. "The Wisconsin loser who has the hots for Danny's mom?"

"Thanks Tuck for that wonderful reminder," Danny frowns, a little disturbed.

It then dawns on Nett that he has no idea who Plasmius is. He could've sworn he knew every ghost Danny fought because it was in the Fenton Journal. So, who the heck was Plamsius? "...Sorry who?"

Wind brushes the fog of smoke away, revealing a pale skinned, red eyed ghost, and totally no push over. Nett's eyes widen at the appearance of their new adversary as he watches Danny go ghost. And once again all Nett can do is hide and wait out the fight.

"Daniel," this 'Plasmius' speaks. Nett notices the fangs. Yup. Definitely a bad guy. "We meet again."

"What are you doing here, Plasmius," Danny orders. "Don't you have some lonely cat to tend to or something?"

Plasmius growls. "For the last time. I will not GET a CAT!"

"What the hell kind of witty banter was that...?" Nett mutters with a face, but an outstanding round one erupts in front of their hiding spot. Danny and Plasmius face it off alone, explosions and neon colored lights zapping everywhere. "Guys? Who is that?"

"That's Plasmius, Danny's arch enemy," Tucker explains. "He has in in for Danny's mom."

"I've heard," Nett says with a face. Didn't Tucker say that earlier?

"And as a heads up, Plasmius is a Halfa too. I think," Sam mentions as the three of them duck down again. "This is bad. What's he doing here?"

"You don't belong here, Vlad! What are you after?!"

"I know the girl is here! That one you've been hanging around with!" the ghost accuses. And from his higher sight, he can see a certain goth girl hiding behind a car. "Peek-a-boo I see you." Catching Danny off guard, the vampire-like-ghost flies past Danny at an even higher speed and swoops in to steal Sam. "Aha!"

"AAHH!" Sam screams, being lifted by the arms high into the air.

"SAM!" Tucker and Danny yell.

"Not good. Not good," Nett panics, taking out his phone. _Please leave a message after the beep_- "For crying out out- Wendy?! Shane?! You guys we've got a problem so get your asses over here- AHHH!" Tucker and Nett duck once more to avoid a flying pole. "I'm not playing this is seriously bad!"

"DANNY!" screams Sam.

"Call me back," Nett squeaks.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Despite the message, Shane and I receive it not a moment too soon, and we're already running back towards FentonWorks to help out the battle before Sam can get taken away. "Quick this way!" I make a sharp turn around the last corner, only for Shane to pull me back by the neck of my shirt before a pink blast can vaporize me on the curb. Shane and I stick our heads out, seeing Danny and this new adversary fighting it off while Sam floats hostage in this pink force field bubble, trying to get out. I spy Nett and Tucker hiding behind a broken car unfortunately parked opposite Fenton Works.

"Who is that?" Shane speaks, reading my mind.

"I dunno. I've never seen him before," I say, racking my brain for any memories of this ghost. Nothing clicks. "Whoever he is, he looks like he's beating Danny bad. I don't know how much longer he'll be able to hold out." I see this adversary ghost demonstrating total control of all these different ghost powers even I had trouble with. _There're all the powers of a Halfa_.

"Shane! Wendy!" Nett yells out from behind the car. Once the coast is clear, Shane and I make a sprint across the battle field and we jump behind the car and over the hood. "Thank God you guys are here we-"

"Yeah we know. Danny needs help," Shane says, wincing from a blast in front of the car. "Nett you have those baseballs?" The next thing I know, I see Shane jumping out from hiding to try and help Danny, throwing baseballs at this 'Plasmius' person Tucker and Nett are going on about. In the corner of my eye I can see Sam trying desperately to escape her prison.

"Whoever this guy is, he must've been the one who sent the vultures," Tucker reads in. "Wendy? I know we went over this earlier but we could really use you right now."

"Me what can I do?"

"You can go ghost and help Danny," Tucker tells me straight out, causing Nett to look at me too for my reaction. "Wendy look. Both Danny and Shane are risking their lives out there."

"And Sam's in trouble," Nett chimes in.

I bite the bottom of my lip, looking back at the battle field between the ghost and Shane and Danny. I can no longer take it when I see Shane get hit with a pink firey ecto blast. "What do I have to do."

"We have to go into the lab in Danny's house," Tucker says, taking out his PDA, typing some things in with a stylis. "I can take you through the procedure but we have to hurry. Nett you stay here and keep watch on everything."

"No problem," Nett gulps as Tucker takes me out of hiding and across the street. Suddenly left alone, Nett regrets saying yes to staying outside to watch.

Meanwhile inside, Tucker and I rush down to the basement. He shuts the ghost portal ff and hooks up his PDA to the main computers, typing into even more buttons and turning all these other knobs I bet even Nett wouldn't know how to do. "If my calculations are correct then the settings are exactly the same as when Danny got his powers." Tucker looks back at me for the go. "You ready?"

"Yeah," I say, shaky. I wave my hands beside my hips, swallowing once or twice. Is it gonna hurt? Am I really doing this? Is there no going back once I get my ghost powers back? This is going against everything I stand for but time isn't really giving me much of a choice. "Let's do this."

I walk inside the empty and hollow tunnel of mechanical wirings. It's dark and a short dead end. "So this is what this place looks like when it's off." It's pretty dark, and there's a bunch of wires on the ground. Trying not to trip over them, I keep my hand on the wall to feel my way through wherever, until I feel my hand push something through.

"Here we go," Tucker says with a lick of his lips. I see lights coming on everywhere, and the short tunnel is getting hotter and hotter until a huge camera-like fash engulfs me, but it's lasting way more than a second. And then this surge of energy starts to run through me that I can barely feel or breathe. "AAHHHH!"

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"AGH!" Danny yells, flying and crashing into Shane on the ground, softening his fall. By now the two are so beat up it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference. "Thanks man," Danny frowns.

"No prob," Shane sighs beneath him, unable to feel his sides anyway.

"You're pretty feisty today, Daniel. I'm surprised you don't fight like this more often!" Plasmius taunts, forcing the pink forcefield holding Sam to float towards him. "Is it because I have your precious girlfriend hostage this time?"

"You let her go, Vlad! She has nothing to do with this!" Danny orders, still on Shane.

"Oh but she has _everything_ to do with this, Daniel. She is my ticket to a future of power and unimaginable strength!"

"Sorry dude, but the most she can do for you is put you on an all vegan diet. Unless that's what you had in mind," a voice says nearby. All eyes go from this ghost to the tallest story window of FentonWorks. I'm sitting up in the window sill, casually with one leg up and another hanging out. But even more noticeable was that I was in my ghost form. Danny's eyes widen, as does Shane's. Nett meanwhile is grinning in pure ecstasy, while Tucker makes a run to the front door to see the scene.

"W-What?!" Plasmius shrieks, looking from Sam to me. "B-But, she's not- And you're-!" His bright red eyes narrow down to me. "You're the girl I'm after!"

"Duh," Sam says from within the bubble, sitting back with arms crossed.

With introductions over and done with, I jump off the tall window and float swiftly down to the ground. My landing sends a circular wave of dust to fly in all directions. You have no idea how good it feels to be able to do that again. To feel this way again. A little cocky, I glare up with a grin, feeling the glow of my ghost-green eyes. "What're you waiting for, guy! I hear for a fruit-loop you're probably a decent punching bag!"

It appears I've irritated the ghost more than enough, so he sends himself flying to where I am. Tucker takes the opportunity to get Shane and Danny up. Nett runs over too. "You guys good?" Tucker asks as I stall Plasmius.

"Yeah we're fine," Danny says, he and Shane brushing off some debris dust. "Quick we have to get Sam out of there."

Plasmius's and my clashing attacks are at almost equal strengths. But my rushing energy and excitement for being a ghost again is giving me the edge. And I think I'm winning. Though, this is probably just because Danny and Shane wore him out first. "What do you want with these kids anyway," I growl, floating up in the air across this ghost.

"Them? Oh they're not my targets this time, girl. Although I can see why you are," he grins evilly. "My name is Vlad Plasmius, and you must be the female Halfa."

"Now I am," I mutter, holding up a foot behind me, glowing with ectoplasmic energy. "You'll never win, Plasmius!"

"Believe me, girl, I've won round one hands down," Plasmius says outlandishly. He looks down, seeing Sam broken out by the guys. "I'll be keeping an eye on you, ghost girl."

I growl at him. "Stay away from these kids," I repeat, heading straight at him with the intent to kick him from the head and sending down flying. His speed is fast, though. So he dodges it and my foot crashes back down to the street, creating a smoked crater shape. However, to where Plasmius transported himself to, Danny was there.

"Peek-a-boo," Danny mocks, sending his glowing fist flying into Plasmius's face. This time it hits and nails him. But it would seem this ghost had enough. He's accomplished his goal, whatever it may be, and with a swirl of his cap, he disappears. The air lifts and the skies are back to normal. The others are a little scratched up, but sound and safe. I look up to where Danny is up high and give him a proud smile. Danny returns the gesture as well, content with today.

x-x-x-x-x-x

"Okay," Tucker sighs, being the last one in. He wipes his brow under his cap and shuts the door finally. "All the rubble is cleared, all the broken wood and metal is in the dumpster, and that broken car is, well, I put a sorry note on it."

"Good job, Tuck," Sam smiles, grateful that this time it was Tucker's turn to clean up.

"I can't believe that after each match you guys have to clean up all the aftermath damage," Nett says, unable to comprehend the extra work.

Sam makes a face. "Well what do you guys usually do after a battle?"

Shane, Nett, and I look to each other. Did we really do anything? "We leave it," we reply together, plain and casual.

"Wow," Danny laughs as Tucker shakes his head. "So Wendy, how does it feel to be a ghost again?"

"Honestly?" I start, sitting on a single couch. "It felt pretty good," I nod with a tiny smile. "And you weren't that bad yourself, Fenton."

"All thanks to you, teach," he winks, making me blush a little. I can't take all the credit. I had a pretty good teacher, too, Danny. "So, would you still be willing to teach me a few ore tricks?" Huh? "If I can up my ecto-blasts that much from just one lesson, I can't wait to see how better I get if we keep going at it."

"Danny's got a point," Sam mentions. "I don't think I've ever seen him fight that well in a while." Danny sends his friend an accusing look. "What? It was Plasmius. You have to admit you don't usually do pretty well against the guy."

"So what do you say, ghost girl?" I see Nett smile as he leans forward in his seat. By the look on his face, I can tell how happy he must feel to be able to call me that nick name again. _But I can't ignore that this must be the reason Plasmius was after me_. "Having your ghost powers again, it'd be even better for you to teach Danny with them."

As much as I want to say no, I can feel everyone's eyes on me. Would it really be that bad to try? And, if everyone's going for it... I sigh out to get rid of my goose bumps. This is no time to be the bad guy. "Alright." I look to Danny, my most serious face on. "From now and for as long as I can, I'll do my best with teaching you."

"Awesome," Danny grins.

"But," I add in, looking at everyone now. "Plasmius. I think by now it's obvious that he was the one who sent those vultures after us. He knows something we don't, and we need to work together and find out what."

"Plus we agreed that we'd help you guys find a way back home," Danny reminds, giving off a confident smile. "Hopefully before Plasmius can accomplish whatever he has under his sleeve."

"Then that settles it," Sam smiles, all of us down with the plan. She then hears her watch go off, then looking out the window. "It's getting pretty late now. I should probably get back home before my parents throw a fit."

"Yeah mine, too. And I'm pretty bushed, too," Tucker adds in, stretching his arms with a yawn. "Destroying public property and playing baseball all in one day tends to destroy one's mentality."

"You coming Wendy?" Sam asks as she and Tucker make their way to the front door.

I'm about to follow, but something else has been lurking in the back of my mind - something I've been trying to _keep_ in the back of my mind. But if I don't do this now then I won't be able to really focus here and get us home. "Uh... I-"

"Do you mind if I keep her for a bit?" Shane interrupts, suddenly up behind me. Shane gives Sam this look in the eye that is almost personally asking for her permission. "I won't keep her out long."

Sam tries to smile back, but her mouth falls a little flat. "Sure thing. I'll see you later, Wendy."

"Bye," I wave as Tucker and Sam leave for the day. I turn back to Shane, somewhat thankful but a little curious. Nonetheless, I have my time alone with him. _Shane..._ "Um, Nett Danny is it okay if I take Shane out for a little while?"

"No problem you love birds go out and do your thing," Nett grins assuring as he pushes a clueless Danny up in a quick rush.

"I knew they were dating," we hear Danny say with a grin as he and Nett disappear. I look to Shane and I see him giving me the same look, and we just end up laughing. But with that we leave FentonWorks together, and I hold Shane's hand, too. I try to savor it for as long as I can.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"So uh, where're you taking us?" Shane asks unsure as I walk hand in hand with him.

"To the playground," I reply quietly, and a little solemnly. The same playground in the park Shane and I used to play at as kids. "Throughout our walk this afternoon, the park was the one place we didn't pass by. I wanna see how it looks."

By now night time has fallen over the peaceful Amity Park. And the park is empty as well, but not abandoned. Green grass lit by moonlight still grows, and the sound of the working running fountain echoes alongside the windy willow trees, creating my dream soundtrack for this place. The differences are subtle, but livid.

The kids playground is exactly where it always was, having not changed a bit. If anything is different, it's only that the swings are held up by ropes instead of metal chains. I kind of like rope swings better now that I see it. I take a seat in one as Shane sits in the other, and we face over the hill of the park, overlooking the bright crescent-shaped moon. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" I say, savoring the vision, somewhat missing the feeling of Shane's warm hand in mine.

"Yeah," Shane lets out. "When was the last time we sat in swings together?"

"Probably Junior Year," I laugh, not realizing how long it's been since we've come to our childhood hang out.

"Oh yeah," Shane smiles, remembering the day. "It was after school right? And Crissy-"

"Was trying to get me to go shopping with her," I say, shaking my head at the silly memory. "She was so ruthless. And you took me and we ran all the way out to the park to hide from her." We laugh a little together. "I forget that girl's an athlete. She can run."

Shane smiles, gripping the rope of his swing. "We hid out here until sunset and everything."

"Yeah..." I think even further. "It's just like when Skulker first came after me, during one of Danny's stupid training tests. You took me and ran us all the way to the woods too." I can still remember the cramps that came with that run. Shane and I are silent. "Did I ever thank you for that?"

"You did," Shane affirms. "Right before you fell asleep."

"Sorry," I blush. But he forgives me. Sitting here, watching the moon and reminiscing over the good days with Shane - it makes me wish I could do this forever, and nothing else. But... I can't be that selfish to him. Shane isn't just a boyfriend. He's, my best friend. I need to say this soon. "So uh, why'd you ask Sam to take me out?" I start, whipping out on my own intentions.

"Um," Shane starts. "There was something else I sort of wanted to talk to you about, without everyone else around."

"Me too," I say lowly, but Shane hears so. Realizing our common goals, we look at each other with surprised yet expectant looks. Does that make any sense? It doesn't have to. The moment. It's here and I have to do this before I lose the nerve and change my mind.

"_I want to break up_," we blurt out, only to realize we've both just said the same thing. If it's possible, our expressions are enhanced twice as much as before.

The silence that follows is inevitable, but I sort of wish it isn't there. I couldn't' figure out how to approach this. I've never broken up with someone before, much less with Shane. Then again, I've never been dumped before either, not that I consider this 'being dumped'. That sounds too mean. "Um..."

"Wow," Shane says to get us back on normal track. "I uh, wasn't expecting that."

"Me neither," I say honestly, but I can't help but sound a little sad. I hope Shane mistakes it as surprise. "I'm sorry Shane."

"Don't be," he tells me, giving me one of his trademark laid back smiles. But his eyes tell me otherwise. Is he sad too, like me? _You don't ever have to apologize to me._

"Look... I have my reasons for this but, what about you?" I ask him, hoping I'm not using the wrong words or tone. I'm looking down at my toes, afraid to look Shane in the eye. This whole scene, it feels so surreal. Us… breaking up.

_You shouldn't be held down by me_ was what Shane wanted to say. Only he couldn't bring himself to say it. "I just think it's that time, you know?" Shane says instead. And it kills him so much. _She deserves better than some guy like me... And when he meets him, she can't hold back because I'm..._ "We had our days and I don't regret it, but," I bite my lips as he speaks. "I just, think it's time we all move on you know?" Shane gives me a smile. "Bigger and better things for the future, right?"

_Come on Wendy..._ "Yeah," I say so lowly, feeling so much but showing nothing. I can't. Couldn't. Even if I wanted to. _Make it end already_. "But.. That means you have to go to New York," I force out, holding in the crack from my throat. "Amity Park will still be here when you get back, Shane," I assure, faking my own smile back to him. "It's not going anywhere."

_But you are_, Shane says, looking me in the eyes that twinkle from the moonlight.

"Just, get out there. Be free and become this macho successful artist I can brag to my college friends about one day," I say, seeing it now. He'll be amazing. Have everything he wanted. Even some girl... "Staying won't do anything for you."

"You really think I should go?" Shane asks me, inwardly wishing I was doing otherwise. Begging him to stay. To say 'I'll wait for you'. But he can't ask that. Never. I nod, and that's all he needs. "Okay then," Shane finalizes. "If we ever get home, then I guess that's where I'm going."

"That's great." I stand up from my swing, stretching my legs. "And we will get home. I promise I'll make sure it happens," I add in, plastering an excited grin on my face. I stretch my arms out into the air, trying to distract myself with this optimistic view . "I mean, we have graduation to get to, remember? Last minute financial aid letters to be sent, drivers tests to pass - and you and Nett still have to get ready for prom and stuff." Shane's head jumps slightly, remembering Crissy's words. I let my arms fall back to my sides, taking reality in. We've... broken up. "I mean, we have our whole lives to get back to-"

A pair of skinny yet built arms suddenly surround me from behind, falling over my shoulder and around my neck. Shane's face rests on my shoulder as well, and my entire body stops breathing. "_I'm_ sorry Wendy," Shane apologizes this time, and I can't stop my eyes from watering. "... It's fine... You're fine." Shane tries to say. His voice sounds different. Not as uneasy as mine, but... it's just not. "I just, want you to be happy."

_I want you to be happy too_. And that why I'm letting him go.

I turn around in Shane's embrace and give him one strong hug, burying the side of my face into his shoulder. I can't bring myself to say anything, afraid I say the wrong thing or forget another, but this moment is all I have left of Shane. We'll be friends but, it still won't be the same. We break apart and stare into each other's eyes, and we kiss, one more time. A simple goodbye kiss. We don't say goodbye but, I know what this is.

"Wendy," he breathes out, looking at me. But the water in my eyes are about to spill, and I refuse to let Shane see that this whole ordeal's left me in tears. I push myself away and run off, leaving Shane by the swings alone. Shane feels the urge to run after me, but knows he can't. That was it, and there's no going back to it.

Despite the time travel, I know Amity Park like the back of my hand. Even through teary eyes and darkness, I make run all the way back to Sam's house, without stopping. I use the extra key she's given me and rush in, running up the stairs to my room. Once I'm there, I'll be okay.

I fail to see Sam as I rush upstairs. She was in the kitchen, and was calling after me, running right behind me. "Wendy!" Sam calls, trying to get me to stop. She outstretches her arms before I can open my door and she turns me around. By then, I automatically fall into her open hug and the tears start rushing out. Sam just holds me there, hugging me like, _like Mom would_.

"Sam," I sob, feeling a pain in my heart incomparable to any ghost battle I've ever fought. _This_ hurts so much more, and I'd do anything to stop it. "Sam I-"

"Shh," she soothes, eyelids half shut as she rubs my back. Mom used to do the same thing when I'd cry in her lap as a little girl. _Shane, he didn't._

"Shane and I..." I hiccup through my sobbing. It's then that Sam understands what happened, and she feels for me. "I... he..."

Sam doesn't say anything, probably because she doesn't know what to say. But just being there, hugging me and being my rock is all i need right now as I cry everything out. The days of me living in this perfect bliss I've taken for granted, days where I was always wishing for adventures and powers and ignoring the fact I've always had Shane next to me my entire life, it's done. It was too short, and I relent everything here in Sam's hold.

Elsewhere, Shane makes his way back to FentonWorks, very stoic on his walk. All these mixed emotions bent up as he makes his way up to Danny's room, and am emotionless mask to hide it all. Danny and Nett, believe it or not, are still up, talking and bro-bonding over similar interests, when Shane walks in for a good night's sleep.

"Dude! Just in time. We were just going over these Super Tess comics and-" Shane just walks past them and over to his mattress in the corner, grabbing some headphones he bought earlier and placing them over his head. "So uh, how'd your date go?"

Shane throws his covers over himself, sleeping in earlier than his two roommates and without a reply. Nett and Danny exchanged confused and muted 'I-don't-know' reactions, while Shane drowned himself off into the music of his recently bought mp3, to replace the one he always had back in the future. And Shane was glad he got this beforehand, because music was the only way he could drown out this horrible, sick feeling.

Shane knows he isn't that much of a sentimental person, especially compared to me. So he hopes that he'll get past this soon. Maybe move on to another girl as a distraction. But, deep down, Shane knows a part of him will always feel this tint of regret. _I'm sorry Wendy._

* * *

**Agh! I know! It hurts! Stone me!  
Ugh, I feel so bad breaking them up... but it's for the story! I'm not doing it for kicks I swear!  
**

**So until the next chapter, hope the story's going okay for everyone. More feedback! Luv reading people's reactions.**

_**PREVIEW:**_

_**"What about that Sam girl?" I ask with the same look. "You guys seem pretty close."**_

_**"Sam?" Danny blinks. "N-Nah. Sam's my best friend. It's weird to picture her in that kinda light, you know?" Ha. Yeah right.**_

_**x-x-x**_

_**"Here's my number. Call me okay?" She turns around to walk away, only to look back once more with a quick hair flip, emphasizing her long and soft wavy locks. "My name's Paulina by the way. Welcome to Amity Park."**_

_**When she's finally gone, a dumbstruck Shane looks down at his hand to the inked number in his palm. Danny looks over his shoulder to see. "Dude, I think we've just found your ticket out of glooms-ville."**_

_**x-x-x**_

_**"Who was that?" Nett asks.**_

_**"That was Vlad Masters," Sam glares. "In other words Plasmius."**_

_**x-x-x**_

_**"Wendy."**_

_**"I'm sorry, too," I say abruptly, not looking at him. With that, Shane leaves the room, and neither of us look back.**_


	6. Caught Up Pt1

It's morning now, and I've sort of accepted the fact that I'm stuck in the year 2007. Surprisingly enough to me, it feels like the least of my problems compared to last night's incident with Shane. Then again, that's an American teenager's priorities for you. The last thing I remember from last night is crying in Sam's arms until I fell asleep. She must've put me in bed because that's where I woke up. I actually woke up about an hour or so ago, but I just laid there, thinking. Hoping yesterday was just a dream. But by the look of my still fresh puffy eyes in the bathroom mirror, it wasn't a dream.

Still clad in my pajamas, I wander downstairs for a snack. I'm not particularly hungry, but I feel like I should get something into my stomach. To my surprise I see Sam downstairs cooking breakfast. "Sam?" I ask, wide awake all of a sudden.

"Oh, morning sleepy-head," she greets, making pancakes. "About time you got up."

I walk over, seeing her flip one in a pan. A bowl of batter and some pancake mix power litters the counter. "I didn't know you cooked breakfast for everyone." I pause. "And I thought you weren't a morning person. I was sure I'd be the first one down here."

"My folks already left for work two hours ago, so I'm not cooking for them. Like I'd be caught dead showing them I can cook breakfast by myself," she scoffs. "Besides, after last night I figured you could use a nice breakfast."

Aw, Sam. "Thank you," I say ever so quietly, with the tiniest hint of a smile. Even back home, Mom never cooked breakfast unless I was down. She liked to cheer me up with a special 'Manson-made breakfast' as she called it. It was so corny, but it always got me smiling. Even here when Sam least knows it, she had the attributes already to a great mother. I peek into the pan of the half cooked pancake. "Let me guess, Tofu Pancakes?"

"_Chocolate Chip_ Tofu Pancakes," Sam corrects, tossing in a handful of chocolate chips before flipping it over with a utensil. "You don't seem like a tofu person to me; so putting up with my food choices all this time I felt like you deserved at least some of these."

"Add more please?" I squeak as Sam pushes me the bowl of chocolate chips, and I sprinkle some more in, us laughing together.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"This sucks," Nett says, tired as ever. Eye bags were visible under his eyes and his hair was unnaturally kept. "How come Jazz never cooks breakfast for you?"

"Because Jazz hates me," Danny reasons. As of right now, he, Nett, and Shane were walking through the super market early in the morning, shopping for food. The Fenton Parents were out for 'work', and Jazz refuses to cook for the three boys, so they were stuck buying groceries for ready-to-eat food. Danny was in between the two, being the one to push the kart. "Just grab what you guys want and put it in the kart."

"Careful what you say man, I'm an eater," Nett warns.

"Go for it," Danny laughs. And with that Nett sprints off into the depths of the super market to claim his free food. Danny sighs, wondering if his parents' credit card will regret it but, at the moment the Fenton's attention is hooked onto his friend Shane. "So, you've been pretty quiet. I know Nett called you the silent-guy a lot but this is ridiculous."

"Sorry. I just have a lot on my mind right now," Shane replies, this being the first he's talked since we were at the park.

Danny's face narrows into one of concern as he pushes the kart. "Is this about you and Wendy's little outing yesterday? You came back pretty sour. You guys okay?"

"We're fine," Shane lies. In a way he hopes we're fine.

"You didn't fight or anything did you?" Danny asks, to be sure. His tone sounds protective and defensive, so much that Shane can't help but flashback to grown-up ghost Danny's protectiveness over his daughter concerning boys.

"We broke up," Shane lets out. Danny's eyebrows raise. "It was a mutual thing."

"Ouch," Danny frowns. "Sorry man." Not looking where they were going, Danny's elbow accidentally bumps into someone else, causing the two to stop as the girl drops her shopping basket. "Oh, sorry my ba-" Danny stops himself when he realizes who he was helping. "Paulina!"

"Huh? Oh. It's you," she frowns, though Danny 's grin stays. Shane arches his eyebrow at the strange scene, but is especially caught when Paulina's gaze wanders over to him. He sees her eyes light up. "Danny who's your friend?" she smiles flirtatiously. _No_.

"This is Shane, my-" Danny pauses, "family friend staying over for a bit."

"Ooh. No wonder I never see him around school. I would've noticed a face like yours," Paulina compliments, walking over to Shane.

"Thanks, I think," Shane says, not smiling back.

"You know, if you want I can show you around Amity Park this afternoon," Paulina offers, taking a piece of fruit into her shopping basket.

"Uh..." Shane make a face upon seeing Danny in the background. Danny is silent but by the motions of his arms and face and mouth, Shane guesses he's supposed to say yes. "Um, yes?"

Paulina gasps, faking her surprise. "That's great! Here." She takes out a marker from her pocket and pulls Shane's hand out of his pocket. Writing her number down, Shane remarks in his head how girls never do that anymore unless they're in an old early 90's movie. "Here's my number. Call me okay?" She turns around to walk away, only to look back once more with a quick hair flip, emphasizing her long and soft wavy locks. "My name's Paulina by the way. Welcome to Amity Park."

When she's finally gone, a dumbstruck Shane looks down at his hand to the inked number in his palm. Danny looks over his shoulder to see. "Dude, I think we've just found your ticket out of glooms-ville."

"Did you just set me up on a date?" Shane asks.

"Look I don't have any dating experience but, I know that in order to get over a girl you need to just, find someone else right?" Danny tries. Shane glances back to the number, unsure. "Trust me, Paulina's a catch. Every guy at Capser High loves her."

"Believe me I think I know her type," Shane assures, thinking back to Crissy. He can't help but find an uncanny personality-resemblance in the two. Then again, if Shane was able to fall for Crissy at one point, maybe he can distract himself with this Paulina girl long enough to get a certain someone off his mind. "Guess it's worth a shot."

"That's the spirit," Danny smiles, moving forward with the cart - just in time for Nett to arrive with am armful of snacks and goodies. Danny's eyes bug out as he tries to see past the mountain in the cart. "Dude you eat just as much as Tucker does."

"Why doesn't that surprise me," Shane remarks, though Nett glares back, mouthing shut up as Danny moves the cart along.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

By afternoon, Sam and I are back at FentonWorks to meet up with the guys for Danny's ghost lesson. When we walk in, Danny, Tucker, Nett, and Shane are all in the living room. "Oh, everyone's here," Sam says, expecting them all to be down at the lab.

"Just waiting for the girls," Tucker smiles. "So Wendy, you ready?"

"Hopefully," I smile confidently. Everyone gets up and moving into the kitchen for the basement except for Shane on the couch. Inevitably I lock eyes with Shane, and he catches me. I don't know how to feel so I try walking over to him. "Hey."

"Hey," he replies a little too quickly, standing up as I near him. "Um, h-how are you?"

"I'm good," I nod. Definitely a lot better than yesterday, but I wouldn't dare tell Shane that. "You?" I ask.

"Mhm yeah," Shane assures, scratching his neck. "Uh, good luck with Danny today."

Hm? He's not coming downstairs? "You're going somewhere?"

"My man's got a hot date!" Tucker springs up out of nowhere, an arm hanging around Shane. A irritable expression befalls Shane as he finds this very reminiscent of Nett's behavior. "With Paulina can you believe it?"

My round blue eyes blink twice in question, while Nett sticks his head out from the kitchen with a totally stuck-on expression of his own. "'Paulina'?" I repeat, my heart giving me this new foreign feeling. Not jealousy or sadness but, something totally different.

Blind to the tension, Tucker just keeps going on, hanging off Shane. "Heheh, yeah. She's like the cutest girl in Capser High. Danny tells me he helped your friend here score her number and they'll be spending the afternoon together! Isn't that awesome?"

I can only blink again as an instant reaction, Shane's face looks unsure and bewildered too, but at the moment I'm too distracted by Tucker's words. Is it true? When I see a couple of numbers written under the palm of Shane's hand, it nails me a bit. "O-Oh. W-Well, that's great Shane! She sounds pretty cool. You show her a good time okay?"

Behind us from the kitchen walls, Nett's mouth hangs open as Sam glares with crossed arms. Danny himself is a bit unsure of how to take this whole unfolding and sort of wishes he could tape Tucker's mouth shut.

Shane's pretty good at hiding emotions, to others and himself. But he can't help but feel a little guilty and he can't figure out why. "Thanks," Shane smiles to me, appreciating the support. He then turns a glare to Tucker. "You can get off me now."

"Oh - sorry man," Tucker grins, letting him go. Shane makes his way to the front door as I stand there, staring at where he once stood. I can hear the others' footsteps approaching from behind, and Tucker's still obliviously unaware of what just went down.

"It's nice to know romance still exists in the future," Tucker states, hands on hips and head held high.

"So uh, you ready to head down Wendy?" Danny asks nervously.

At that, a loud 'whack' sound comes up from Sam as she hits both Danny and Tucker with a rolled up newspaper from the kitchen. "You boys are so insensitive I swear!" Sam barks.

"Ow- what'd I do!?" Tucker freaks out as Danny rubs his head.

"And you!" Sam threatens, pointing a close finger to an already nerve-wrecked Danny. "How dare you set Shane up right after a break up! You don't DO that what kind of cold human being are you?!"

"Wendy," Nett says warily, coming up behind me. I bet he's wondering why neither of us told him. I don't blame Shane but now I'm left here with the responsibility of answering question I _really_ don't want to deal with.

"Okay!" I yell, forcing everyone to just, stop for a second and look at me. I breathe out, remembering where we are. "Look I'm alright. So Shane's on a date big whoop. Let's just, go downstairs and get started with the training. Can we do that?"

Everyone looks at one another and without a word we all unanimously head down to the Fenton Basement. Danny, Sam, and Tucker go first, me intending to follow at the back. But Nett touches my shoulder and I see him with the most serious expression. "We're talking later," he whispers under his breath before following behind Sam. I sigh. There's no avoiding Nett when it comes to me and Shane, I guess. Or, what used to be of us.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Down at the lab, all of us are in position. Tucker, Sam, and Nett are sitting and observing from the sidelines, while Danny and I stand in the center.

Danny was already a ghost, so all I had to do was tell him what we were doing. "Today's lesson is on Intangibility and Invisibility," I state out loud, stone hard into my role as a teacher. I've drilled that straight into my head to keep distracted from Shane. This is what's happening now; not Shane.

"Um," Danny starts, a little confused. "No disrespect intended Wendy but, intangibility and invisibility?"

I smirk, walking over to a nearby table. I pick up a 30 pound weight and a textbook. Walking over to Danny, I hand him the textbook. "Here, hold this and turn invisible for me, will you? Hold it out for as long as you can. I'll time it," I offer, holding a stop watch.

Seeing Danny's clueless face reminds me of mine, but he does so without another word. And I start the stop watch. About ten seconds in, Danny turns visible before me once more, still holding the textbook.

"Good," I smile. "10.4 seconds. But the book. How much did it weigh?"

Danny looks to the book and plays with it for a second. "It felt like it was barely there when I was invisible."

I give him a nod. "That's because when you're invisible, you and anything you're holding onto become as light as a feather."

"Really," Danny says. "I never noticed that before."

I take the book from him and exchange it with the 40 lb weight. It's tiny and fits right in your palm, so Danny isn't expecting it o be as heavy as it is when he almost drops the it, but he has it. "Now turn invisible while holding this and tell me the difference."

Sam and Tucker pay attention to my teaching methods, as curious as ever. Nett says unusually quiet, sitting amongst them, but he notices Sam taking notes in a notebook. The future Fenton Journal.

"Go," I signal, and I watch Danny fade away before me. The timer is running, and just as it hits five, Danny reappears as a faint outline that's hard to see. But I hear a loud 'ding' hit the ground', and in a snap Danny reappears fully. The 40 lbs. weight is on the ground by his feet. "Five seconds," I announce. "So?"

"Whoa," Danny pants, looking at me like I had two heads. "Could've warned me, you know?"

"I could've. But you didn't exactly warn me when I was training under you," I smile, having a little fit of revenge at the moment, ot that this Danny deserved it. Still, it served a good lesson. "Notice how the book is a lot bigger than the mass of the paperweight weight, yet the paperweight is a whole lot heavier than the book."

"No kidding," Danny says, scratching his neck in embarrassment that he probably failed the test.

"Don't be so hard on yourself. Like you said if I'd warned you, you probably would've done better. It's all about anticipation and reaction," I assure with a warm smile. Something Danny didn't really do. If I failed, he rubbed it in my face about how wrong and incorrect I did something. I pick up the weight with ease in my hand. "You managed to hold your invisibility with this for a couple of seconds, but then you started to lose it and you turned intangible instead of remaining invisible. So the ball fell through your hand."

"So that's what happened," Danny blinks, looking at his hand.

"Often times when you're confronted with a problem a certain way, your powers of invisibility and intangibility tend to waver back and forth," I warn. "It's impossible to rule 'surprise' out of your brain, so the best way to avoid this is to just train your ghost body into knowing the distinct difference between intangible and invisible."

"Alright. So, how do I do that?"

I bring out another pal-sized marble marked 55 lbs. "You just keep testing your invisibility timing - with this."

I can see Danny trying not to look as upset as I feel happy. Mm. Maybe being a teacher does have its perks. "Do I have to?"

"Interestingly enough, you can't learn intangibility until you master invisibility," I say with a sly smile as I role the marble into his hands. "Think of it as a work out for your ghost muscles."

"She knows so much about this," Tucker notices, amazed by the short demonstration. "Like a science."

"Wendy had only a year to master all of her ghost powers," Nett tells him and Sam. "It was hard enough learning them, training every day. But she had to understand and master everything in such a short span of time."

"Why so fast?" Sam asks, writing stuff down still.

"Circumstances," Nett sums up, not wanting to go too much into detail. "At the time I never realized how much Wendy put into this, though. Not just by training but by studying the science behind it all. How to do this, why you do that - and despite having no powers for such a long time, it seems she drilled it all into her head so much before that it's become common sense for her."

"That's amazing," Sam says, unable to comprehend. "I watch Danny try to get a handle on this stuff all the time. I can't imagine having only a year to get it all down."

"Well Danny's learning this all from scratch, and he doesn't exactly have a time limit here," Nett points out with a smile. Despite the training session, Nett still wants to know what happened between Shane and I. And seeing Sam and Tucker, it would seem that these two would be okay sources. "Say, Danny might be here a while doing his sets. You guys wanna go out and grab a bite to eat? We kind of missed lunch."

Danny and I see the others walking out of the lab, apparently to go grab lunch. Sam calls out saying that they'll bring something back for us, and with that it's just Danny and I, which we're totally fine with.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

While Danny and I are alone, I'm more or less monitoring Danny turn invisible over and over, timing him. These exercises are helping, though. I can see the progress the longer we go, but it tends to linger on. Time. So being here with just Danny, I can't help but think back to my own training session...

_"As light as a feather right?" Danny asks after I do a demonstration under him. "When you turn things invisible, they can become incredibly light."_

_"That's good to know," I say with a bored expression, Shane and Nett looking on. _

_"Now turn invisible and touch the door," Danny instructs, pointing to a large door stand in the middle of the room. So that's what it was there for. I frown, not wanting to be here. "Come on just do it."_

_With a final roll of my eyes, I touch the door with my finger and turn invisible for Danny, only for me to feel a huge weight over my chest that almost knocks me to my knees. I'm forced to turn visible again with a hand on the ground and another on my heart. "What the heck was that?" I demand._

_"It comes with the whole invisibility thing Miss I-already-know-how-to-do things," Danny smiles, flying over me. "The heavier things are, the more energy it takes out of you."_

_"Well that stinks."_

_"Hey come on that shouldn't bother you. It's an easy thing to take care of. Kinda like working out, just, in ecto-energy instead of in muscle flab."_

_Stubborn, I sit on the ground with my legs crossed underneath me, refusing to do this anymore. "Fine. I'll practice later at home. What about the intangibility thing let me work on that instead."_

_"Nope, can't learn intangibility until you master invisibility."_

_"Since when!"_

_"Since I said last we met 'practice your invisibility'," he replies back plainly._

Mm. Now that I look back on myself during my early days as Danny's student, I realize how much of a brat I used to be with him. Then again, I didn't exactly want the responsibility of being a Halfa, either. As I'm reflecting, I try to think of the spot where my mindset changed and I went from lazy ghost student to determined super girl in training. Images of Shane and Nett appear in mind. Nett was a good friend. Good back up. But Shane. He's saved my ass more times than I could count. And the only way I could repay it was saving his when he needed it. And to do that, I had to really up my game with Danny. _I guess, my turning point was when I realized I had something to protect_...

"Wendy!" I hear Danny call, snapping me out of my thoughts. He stands in the middle of the floor, tired and exhausted. "How many more of these do I have to do before I can break?"

Oops. Forgot about Danny. "You can take a break now. Sorry Danny," I apologize with a sheepish grin. Heh.

Danny drops the weight and walks over to where I'm sitting, hands on hips. "You okay? You looked like you were spacing out for a minute there."

"Sorry," I apologize. "Just thinking, that's all."

"About?" Danny asks, sitting next to me like a curious child, despite how similar in age we look right now. "Oh, it's about Shane isn't it." No. Well, technically but him and other things. "Sorry Wendy. I didn't know you were still hung up about it. If I'd known I wouldn't have set him up with Paulina."

"No it's fine," I say, laid back. "Thank you actually."

This time Danny looks distraught, as if I'm confusing him. "You're thanking me?"

I smile, a little embarrassed. Would he understand my reasoning? "Have you ever cared about someone before so much that, you were willing to throw away your own happiness for theirs?"

That question sounds so foreign to Danny, but he tries to reason through. "I can't say I have. I think. Dunno." Danny laughs. "Sorry. But, I can you really care about that guy. He's really lucky."

"I'm the lucky one," I smile, reaching into my shirt and pulling out the small pocket watch. I dare not open it in fears of Danny seeing the picture of him in it, but I know Shane's image is in here as well. "Shane was there for me through everything, even before I got my powers. And, somewhere along the lines I..." _fell in love?_

"Say no more," Danny smiles, understanding that much. "But, if you guys like each other so much then why'd you break up?"

"It's complicated, Danny," I say. Ew. It's complicated? I used to despise girls who said that phrase, where the situation is never as complicated as they make it out to be. Is mine really that complicated? "I know we may not look it now, but Nett, Shane and I are 18. And back home we're all going to college soon."

"Really?" Danny asks. "Wow."

"And, as much as I'd like to stay with Shane," I hug my knees. "I can't hold him back from his career. He should be free to try new things, without me holding him down." Would Shane really go to his dream school if he and I were still together? If he met his soul mate, would Shane go after her if he was till tied down with little old me? "I'll never admit it to anyone, but Shane's too good for me."

"Gosh," Danny sighs out, resting his back against the wall like me. "That's such a twisted love story."

I laugh at that, surprising Danny enough. "Wait to you go through the rest of high school."

"Hope I can find a girl who'll like me like that one day," Danny grins, looking up and  
imagining it. And at that moment I can't help but think of Mom. Sam. I'm guessing right now they can't even imagine their future together. So I decide to poke some fun with my 'student'.

"What about that Sam girl?" I ask with the same look Nett used to give me when he'd tease me. "You guys seem pretty close."

"Sam?" Danny blinks. "N-Nah. Sam's my best friend. It's weird to picture her in that kinda light, you know?"

"I know," I smile, understanding. I guess Danny and I were more similar than I thought. All these years, I never did get to know Mom and Dad's love story beyond me being born, but I leave it at that. It's nice, having these talks with Danny again.

All of a sudden again, our ghost sense comes up. A small strip of cold visible air escapes from my mouth and Danny's, and we exchange similar reactions. A ghost is nearby.

"Wow," I blink. "Haven't had one of those in a while."

"Then you know what it means," Danny says, standing up. The alarm on the Ghost Portal is sounding off, and I pull myself to my feet. Something tells me we already know who's coming through the portal.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"So you're a cheerleader," Shane says, trying to be enthusiastic and polite.

Paulina grins. "Yeah. Captain."

_Mm. Wendy was a co-soccer captain_. He was thinking of her again. "Casper High must really be into sports then." He and Paulina are at a nearby mall, eating in the food court and hanging out. This was the type of date Shane used to go on with Crissy, and he figured the same would suit someone like Paulina. And for a while the 'date' was going alright. But Shane just couldn't bring himself to be further interested than he was already pretending.

"We are. Mr. Lancer says Casper High is on the brink of making all the Fall championships."

Heh. Figures Lancer would still be a teacher around this period. "So uh, what kind of guys are you normally into?"

"Mm," Paulina thinks. "Normally muscle guys. Athletes. You know."

"So you're that type," Shane says. "I don't think I really fit that category."

"Perhaps," Paulina says with a finger to her chin. "But you do seem cool, and you _are_ pretty cute." Her blue-green eyes light up all of a sudden. "Hey! Why don't you come with me to my school dance as my date? I could really use one."

"Dance?" Shane repeats, caught off guard by the forward request.

"Yeah. In a couple days our school's having this retro style dance in our gym. It's going to be pretty fun I think. Would you be willing to tag along?"

"I..." Shane thinks for a moment. Normally he'd turn things like this down but, he had to remember why he was out on a date in the first place. _I need to get over Wendy_. "Sure. I'd love to."

Paulina does a cute little gasps as her hands fly to her face. "Really? Oh my gosh you have no idea how scared I was you'd say no."

"Why would I say no?" Shane smiles politely.

Paulina looks like she's about to say something else, but her phone rings off an she goes to see what it is. Shane can't help but think mentally how her flip phone reminds him of mine. Old and retro. "I've gotta go. But, if you want you can come over later? My dad's out of town for the week," she offers flirterously.

"I'll uh, keep that in mind," Shane says, unsure how to take the invitation.

"I'll call you later okay?" Paulina is about to stand and go up to leave, but much to Shane's surprise she leans over the table to kiss him . Saying yes to a dance. Yes. Saying yes to an outing or date. Okay. A kiss? Shane wasn't particularly ready. But, alas, he was a guy. And a fairly attractive female was learning over to kiss him, and she wasn't particularly bad, either. Direct contact, the lip gloss taste he never really got with me, and the short clear line of cleavage he saw when his eyes were open. He couldn't help but kiss back.

Then just as quick as it happened, Paulina retreats back. "Oh, sorry Shane. I don't usually kiss on the first date but, you were really a gentleman today."

"I-It's no problem," Shane assures, wondering what just happened. Paulina says goodbye one more time before she walks away from their table and into the mall crowd. Shane sits, taking in the events that just occurred. "Did I just...?" Shane loses his voice, and he sits back. Did he enjoy the kiss? Yes. Was he thinking of Paulina? _Her body_, yes. But mentally, he couldn't help but just compare her to his ex-girlfriend, nearly a polar opposite.

Unlike Paulina, and even Crissy, Shane's hormones automatically remembered the soft touch and charm I had as compared to Paulina's or Crissy's direct approach. How soft and smooth my lips were in a kiss as opposed to slippery and rough as those who used lip gloss and went straight into tongue. How with me, it was more than just making out with a girl you liked - it was with someone very special, whereas Paulina was just eye candy with a bigger bra size and a more obvious bottom curve.

These wavering thoughts between 'Paulina' and 'Wendy' further frustrated Shane to the point he just laid his head on the table. _So much for getting over Wendy_. "Stupid hormones," Shane muffles into his sleeve, only to hear his phone vibrate. Without lifting his head, Shane is able to retrieve his future-like phone and open and activate it without looking. When he finally looks up, his heart beats even harder upon seeing my picture on the screen.

"Aaah!" Shane jumps, startled. He realizes it's a call and hurries to answer, pushing away dirtier thoughts to the back of his mind. "Wendy?"

"_How the heck do you use this_- Shane? Shane is this you?" Danny's voice calls desperately instead.

Was that Danny using Wendy's phone? "Danny?"

"Hey yeah what's up - sorry for interrupting your date and all but we could really use you back here in the labs-!" CRASH. EXPLODE. "_AAAAH! _WENDY! Shane it's Plasmius hurry! Ack, and get Nett too I can't use this thing-!"

The phone cuts off with static, and Shane's mindset automatically turns off and into a different mode. He's running across the mall with a single thought and sets to call Nett, wherever he went. Wasn't he supposed to be at FentonWorks too? "Dude, get your ass to FentonWorks quick! I think Danny and Wendy are in trouble! It's Plasmius again!" Shane hangs up with that simple message, dodging people as he scurries to get to his destination. One thing is on his mind, and he won't rest until he's sure I'm safe. _Wendy!_

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"WAHH!" I fly back, attempting to soften my land as my head nears the floor. Flipping myself over, I dart right back up into the air to hit Plasmius. Only it's a copy, and suddenly that duplication power is the epitome of my nerves. "Never before have I hated a ghost power with such passion before."

Danny lands and slides on his feet, ending up below me. "Something's not right. All of them are copies - not one of them is the real Vlad."

"Can't be. He has to be here somewhere. Just keep blasting them, Danny!" Danny doesn't question my order and we continue taking out clone after clone. _It can't be. One of these has to be the original. He's not _that_ powerful is he?_

"You're coming with us!" one of the Plasmius copies says, catching me from behind with a second clone. So they were after me.

"Let me go!" I shout, turning in a tornado line spin and shaking them off, only for three more to tackle me.

Meanwhile outside, Shane is running down the street from one side while Nett, Sam, and Tucker are running from the opposite direction. As they close in on FentonWorks, they see the Fenton RV parked out front, and all four teens skid to a stop on both sides of the vehicle.

"What the heck is this?" Nett asks, bewildered by its huge and intricate design.

"Danny's parents' ride," Sam whispers. Just on cue, the front doors open. On Nett, Sam, and Tucker's side. Jack and Maddie exit to greet the kids. Meanwhile on the opposite side, a third man exists on Shane's side, dressed in a suit with long white hair and dark circles around his eyes. Shane stays still with a defensive face to the apparent stranger, until something hostile clicks in his head.

"Hey kids!" Jack greets. "Here to meet up with Danny?"

"Yeah Mr. Fenton!" Tucker agrees, nervously chuckling.

"Well don't let us keep you. Come on in, Vlad," Maddie calls, as the kids see a third man walk around the front of the RV. Tucker and Sam try their best not to look too surprised, but when the three adults disappear into the house, they're free to talk.

"Who was that?" Nett asks.

"That was Vlad," Sam glares. "I thought Shane said Plasmius was fighting Danny and Wendy downstairs."

"That's what he told me," Nett says, confused.

"Who the hell was that?" Shane's suddenly up toned voice speaks, startling the three. Shane steps out from the other side of the Fenton RV, a slightly intimidating expression on view.

Nett blinks, all the more clueless. "Um-"

"That was a ghost, wasn't it," Shane says, trying to keep his instincts under control. Shane looks to Nett, hoping he understands. "My Ghost Blood instincts are kicking in. He's a ghost, right?"

Nett's worry rises as Tucker scratches his head. "Yeah but, how'd you know?"

"Long story. Special bloodline we need to get downstairs now," Nett rushes, the four teens rushing into the house. However Jack, Maddie, and this 'Vlad' are seated in the living room, shaking tea and cookies. And by the looks of it they won't be leaving any time soon.

"There you kids are why don't you join us?" Jack invites enthusiastically. "I'm sure Danny will be down in a minute."

The teens exchange looks, unable to argue with the elder Fenton. But just being in the room with this other man, they felt uncomfortable, if not at all confused.

"Um, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton? Where's the bathroom?" Shane speaks up.

"There's a laboratory in the kitchen, lad," Jack offers, pointing into the room nearby.

"Thank you Mr. Fenton!" Shane says quickly, but not before whispering to the others to keep the adults stalled upstairs. But as Shane runs out of the room, he can't help but feel this Vlad guys' stare on his back.

Shane takes a turn downstairs to the basement, where he can hear the battle and struggle taking place. Boxes are everywhere and the view before him is astounding that he has to stop at the base of the stairs.

Danny is trying his best to keep the Plasmius duplicates from carrying me through the Ghost Portal. If anything this whole ordeal has turned into a game of tug of war, and it's been getting on my nerves. And where the heck is our so called back up anyway!? "That's enough!" I scream, sending out a huge wave of ghost energy all around. It's enough to blow even Danny away, as well as obliterating all the Plasmius duplicates. If anything it only shows that all of them really were clones, with the original not even here.

Shane falls back as well, and sadly the outburst of ghost energy is enough to send a huge box of parts falling to its side, ending with a huge crash.

"What was that?" Maddie jumps, having heard the crash.

"I'm sure it was nothing," Tucker tries to distract, but they can't explain the second crash coming from below. "Uh, ghost mice?"

"Ghosts?!" Jack exclaims with excitement.

"Nice..." Sam glares. Jack and Maddie stand up and go to rush to their lab, and the kids inevitably follow, leaving behind their mysterious guest to wait in the living room.

"Agh..." Danny groans, already turned human from exhaustion. Looking up, he and Shane see my limp levitating body floating downwards. The two boys don't hesitate to run and catch me before I reach the floor. Shane beats Danny to it. "What the heck was that?"

"I dunno. She never used that power before," Shane says as he holds my light and unconscious ghost body. Hearing a stampede of footsteps, Shane and Danny look up, seeing shadows coming along and downstairs.

Danny panics. "Not good not good she's still a ghost!"

"Well what do we do?" Shane panics, his voice lowering as the shadows close in down the steps.

Danny looks left and right in a panic as Shane shakes me to wake me up, until an idea strikes up in the teen Fenton. "I have an idea but you have to go along quick."

"What's going on down here!" Jack announces as he and his entourage arrives. However all of them gasp in the sight before them.

In the middle of the lab in front of the ghost portal, Shane stands holding me leaning over, kissing me in my human form with Danny standing nearby in 'apparent shock'. Turns out when the kiss woke me up, the shock of my body's exhaustion was enough to turn me human.

"Whoa," Nett blinks.

Danny fake gasps, seeing their audience. "And cut!" Danny yells. _What_?

Eventually Shane breaks off the sudden (yet not unwelcome) kiss and I'm held there in complete and utter cluelessness. "What was that?" I blink.

"Danny calls it a fake-out-make-out," Shane whispers as he holds me, just as confused.

"You guys were great! Now my play for Romeo and Juliet is perfect! Lancer just has to give me an A!" Danny claps, walking towards us with this convincing demeanor that this was all planned. Was it all planned? I just woke up. Danny turns around, acting surprised to see everyone. "Oh, hey guys! I was just borrowing Shane and Sam's cousin for this script I wrote for school." Wow.

"Wow," Tucker laughs quietly.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"Alright," Danny says as he leads me, Shane, Nett, Tucker, and Sam into his room. "You guys stay in here while I go down for some 'family time' with my parents and Vlad."

"Hurry back okay," Sam bids as Danny closes the door, as if keeping up in some protected safe. "That was close."

"No kidding," Tucker frowns. "What I don't get was that I thought you guys were fighting Plasmius."

"We _were_ fighting Plasmius. All fifteen of him," I say, a little beat up. "And I have the scars to prove it."

"But he's in the living room right now with Danny and his parents," Tucker says.

"Don't you get it Tuck?" Sam asks. "Vlad's downstairs but he sent clones of himself to get Wendy from the Ghost Zone."

"Who's Vlad?" I ask, the only clueless one in the group.

"Apparently a Halfa," Shane says with a hardened stare. "Vlad is the real identity of Plasmius."

"And apparently Danny's arch enemy," Nett adds in.

Sam nods. "I don't know what he's up to but he must've been trying to keep us all separated. And his plan almost worked, too."

"No kidding," I say, feeing as sore as ever. One thing I so don't miss about being a ghost is the beat ups. You take damage as a ghost, but when you turn back into a human, the damage feels like it's doubled.

"_Hey guys! Can you come down for a sec!?_" Danny's voice begs.

"Ooh. I know that call. It means come down here and make the situation less awkward," Tucker reads, standing up next to Sam. "We'll go down and stick with Danny. You guys can wait in here is that cool?"

"Yeah. Thanks Tucker," Shane says, sitting next to me as a lean post. When Sam and Tucker leave, the three of us are left alone and Shane says something that sounds really urgent. "You guys I don't trust that Vlad person one bit."

"No duh. He tried to kidnap me," I grumble, not liking this stranger either.

"_No_," Shane whispers, not meaning that. "You know how the three of us were at the FentonWorks lab? Before we ended up back in this time period?" Nett nods, and I arch an eyebrow. "While we were split up in the dark, I could've sword I saw a face." Shane saw something? Was it the same light I saw from the windows that day? "I'm willing to bet anything that that Vlad-guy was the same person I saw down in the labs that night."

"Vlad Masters?" Nett asks to be sure.

"You think he could've been the one who sent us back in time?" I ask.

"I don't know yet. But he's here, in the house right now. We can't ignore this information."

"Believe me we won't-" Nett stops abruptly. Now what? "_Wendy you're bleeding_."

... What that's it? "What?"

"Y-Y-Your head, it's bleeding!" Nett panics. I bring up my arm to touch the side of my temple. Some blood is on my finger but, it's not like it hurts majorly or anything. "Nett chill out it's alright I'll just-"

"No no no we need hot water- no cold water no we need gause and water and bandages and antibacterial wipes and- AGH you, you stay put I'll be right back!" Nett panics as he sprints up and almost trips on his way out the door.

Shane and I sit on the bed alone, completely lost at today's events. Especially the one right now. "I knew Nett could be pretty panicky about a lot of blood but..."

"Foley's Foley," Shane finishes, and nod. However realizing we were alone in company, we look at each other and I feel my face grow warm and we urn away from each other. I blame the cut on my head. With the quick turn, a sudden migraine shoots through my head and I react pretty vocally, holding my head. "H-Hey are you okay?"

"Yeah, just moved too quickly," I say clumsily. Soon enough I see Shane in front of me, pulling up a seat in front of the bed. He pulls out some tissues from the bed stand and begins to gently dab my cut. Mm, I can always count on Shane can't I. "Thank you."

"If you were smarter you would've done this earlier before Nett freaked out," Shane lectures, making us laugh a little. Shane continues to clean up the blood. "Geez. That ghost must've really roughed you up back there. Just how numb are you that you can't feel this thing on your head?"

"Pretty sore," I admit. "I haven't fought that hard in a long time. I kinda miss it."

"Well don't miss it too much. We need you in one piece when we get home or else Sam'll kill me." I laugh again, and Shane takes one last tissue, holding it to my head for me since I can't. "Alright, we'll just hold this here until it stops." I nod gently, and we sit there in silence in this position, waiting. I thought Nett was in a hurry. "Sorry about earlier, with the kiss down in the lab," Shane apologizes, reminding me of the scene. "We couldn't' figure out how to make you change back before everyone came down."

"No I understand. Besides it was Danny's idea," I reason, unable to hide my unconscious blush. "And it worked didn't it? I woke up right?"

"Well you _did_ kiss back," Shane lets me know, and I look away shyly.

_Stop it Wendy you can't feel this way anymore remember?_ "So how was your date with Paulina?" I ask, changing the subject. Why the hell I changed it to this one I'll never know.

"It went well," Shane nods, keeping hold of the side of my head with the tissue. "She uh, asked me to her school dance."

"School dance huh?" I smile, happy for him. "That's nice." Kinda fast, too...

"She's, pretty direct," Shane says, trying to think of a word. I produce a flat smile to show my enthusiasm, but I look down too. Shane closes in his head as his hand holds my head back up. "Keep your head up. You'll start bleeding again-" All of a sudden his face and mine are pretty close. And my emotions run wild all over again.

Normally when this happens, my mind blanks out and something or another happens, but I can't let it happen here. We're not dating anymore, remember? And he's already courting this other girl for kicks. I can't get in the way of that - I practically _pushed_ him towards her. "H-How's my forehead now?" I ask, feeling light headed. I can't tell if it's from blood loss or the fact he's so close.

"Uh, still bleeding," Shane smiles sheepishly, removing the tight tissue and realizing it was soaked with blood already. He stands up to throw it away and get another one, only when he turns back towards me, Danny's mess of a room gets a better of him and he loosing footing over a piece of paper on the floor.

Shane slips forward towards me and I lean back in an attempt not to clash heads with him. And in a swift motion, one of his hands manage behind my head to soften my fall back into the bed as his other hand rushes to my wound to protect it from getting hit with any of the other clutter on Danny's bed - like this pointy toy airship near his pillow. Geez Danny really?

I can feel Shane's weight over my sore figure, but I'm already sore from battle, so this feels like nothing. The only pain I feel is the dizziness in my head from the swift fall. But, Shane's catch with my head did help a little. And I can feel my gash covered with that new tissue already. "Are you okay?" Shane whispers, lifting his torso off me.

"I-I'll manage," I say, feeling the room spinning and my head getting even lighter. Stupid battles. But Shane's face is so close. The last time he was this close was during that wake-up kiss in the lab. Just when I readied my mind for the fact I'd never be able to kiss Shane again, bam it happens. And now...

Shane leans closer, and I see just how bright his eyes are once more. "Shane." He closes the gap and kisses me softly, and suddenly my sore body and bleeding head - I can barely feel them. Shane's hand beneath me elevates my head a little, and my arms wrap about Shane, and this entire day's bottle of negative emotion is thrown away.

He rolls off me but his hand remains firmly pressed at my temple, where the tissue holds over my wound. And the his other hand holds the bottom of my chin as I run my hands through his hair. I've taken this for granted, too. I've missed Shane. I_ will_ miss him. Eventually I take his hand at my temple and glide it off - the tissue and the blood being the least of my worries. This leaves his hands with more freedom.

We inch closer and closer until I feel Shane's hand going form my shoulder down my arm and side, then it rests on my hip. When I feel his cold fingers slowly going up and under my shirt, I remember my place. My mental stance that I can't... I can't do this anymore.

"_Shane_," I breath out in between kisses. "Shane stop."

And just like always, Shane always listens to my words first. He stops, and his hand moves away from my side. By the look on my face, he can tell that we weren't supposed to do this anymore either. Being together...

"I," Shane didn't know what to say for himself. "I'm sorry. I didn't..."

I shake my head, feeling a cold trickle of blood once again from my head wound. My hand flies to it in reminder, and I feel a whole sense of guilt to what just happened.

Shane looks horrified, and we hear his phone ring. Shane looks to answer the text and I can't help but look, too. I see a girl's picture, and reading the name upside down, it begins with a 'P'. Paulina. My eyelids lower a little, feeling this horrible pain inside somewhere. "I-," Shane starts again.

"You should go," I cut off.

"Wendy."

"I'm sorry, too," I say abruptly, not looking at him. _Why is this so hard? Letting him go_.

Getting a second text from this girl as a reminder, Shane turns around swiftly and leaves without another word, and I lower my head ever more so my bangs cover my eyes. Shane almost bumps into Nett on the way out, but he gives no explanation as to where he's going. Nett tries to say something but, Shane's gone. "What was that?" Nett asks, but I sit where I was on the bed, head turned away and a hand beside my head.

"Wendy?" Nett smiles, walking over. "I found a first aid kit." He sits in Shane's chair, and he lifts my head up to see me crying. Nett of course goes into panic mode once more. "H-Hey what happened? What's wrong what happened?" He takes more tissues to wipe my face of the tears, like a mom. Heh. "Why're you crying, Wen? Does it hurt that bad?" Nett asks in a frantic tone, not knowing how to deal with this.

"Yeah..." I whisper as Nett opens his first aid kid with all this medical stuff inside. He starts pulling out different things in a umped mess like a spray and cotton. But, it really does hurt. So, so much inside.

I can't blame Shane for what just happened. It was partially my fault too. It takes two to kiss, doesn't it? But hormones are hormones. And with Shane going to college, well, I just have to get used to the idea that he won't be interested in me forever. There're prettier girls, smarter ones. He'll find his match soon enough.

And when he does, he'll finally be able to be with that person and... forget about me. Just imagining it, another lone tear slides down my face as Nett tries to repair my wound.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Elsewhere, Shane walks along the night streets of Amity Park., mind cluttered with images 'Wendy Manson'. _Come on Shane hurry up! Shane, you're so weird. You jerk! Shane, that was awfully nice of you. You know, Shane, you clean up pretty good; you know, for a jerk. Shane thank you so much! Shane! Haha! _

The boy shuts his eyes. "Stop it," he forces. As if they didn't have enough major problems to deal with. Now silly love-problems have to revolve as well.

Shane makes it to his destination that night and he rings the doorbell, resting against the door post. _I have to forget about her_, he thinks. _We're over, remember?_

"Hello?" The door finally opens, and Paulina opens the door in a teenager's version of night pajamas. A see-through blouse and booty shorts. She looks surprised to see it's Shane, and he can't tell if it's an act or not, but he takes out his frustration here anyway. "Oh Shane. It's you. Guess you accepted my invitation after all."

"Can I come in?" Shane asks.

Paulina smiles, eyelids lowering. She leaves against the back wall behind the door, arms crossed and squishing against the sides of her chest to show off her not-so covered cleavage. "That depends, how long are you willing to stay?" she asks low and seductive.

Shane stands outside, consciously knowing this was wrong. If he did this there was no going back to who he was now. But it was the only way he'd be able to forget about his feelings. "How long are you willing to keep me?" he responds, face as emotionless as he wishes to feel.

Shane walks through her door and straight to Paulina, mouths connecting and his hands aiming right to her barely covered hips, pelvises leaning and arms moving. Breaking the kiss only temporarily, Paulina manages to quickly remove Shane's shirt, tossing it aside to the shoe-wrack before she wraps her arms back around his head. Hearing his deep moans through the kiss, she smirks. Shane then aims at her neck, feeding of her moans as one of his hands lower her bra strap over her already slipping see through shirt. Hormones rage over his mentally 18-year old mind as Shane feels her chest pressing against his own, which he was very new to. And despite knowing this was wrong, he couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop. Paulina's legs wrap around his waist as Shane holds her up, pressing her against the wall as he deepens the kiss every chance he gets.

He can feel everything, from her lips to the smell of her long hair, from her pressing chest to the smooth feel of her legs around his bare sides and his hands grasping her soft butt, barely covered anyway from her 'shorts'. He carries her like this, and not breaking the kiss, Shane closes the door behind him.

* * *

**November! Haha, new birthday! New whole year! Fresh start and suffs :3  
Thought I'd update - shake things up a little. Soooo, Plasmius/Vlad is up to no good, but what exactly is his plan, anyway? **

**And SHANE! I know, huge turn around lots of burns tears shall be shed. It's all part of the plot so sorry if anyone's mad! But the next chapter will be up soon enough! But I hope all us Danny Phantom fans are doing well in school this season, or elsewhere!**

**PREVIEW:**

_**"Yo Danny, Tucker come'ere."**_

_**"What is it?"**_

_**"Shane here is going to ask Wendy to our prom back home and we need prom-proposal ideas," Nett announces with a smirk, waking Shane up from his emotionless shelled coma.**_

_**"What-?"**_

_**"Ooh prom?! I'm in!" Tucker immedietly agrees.**_

_**x-x-x**_

_**You okay?" Danny asks. "Still thinking about guy troubles?"**_

_**"Is it that obvious?"**_

_**"You know, if you really like the guy then I don't see why you can't just get back together with him."**_

_**"It's not that simple, Danny. Besides, you set him up and with Paulina, remember?"**_


End file.
